





• 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


















THE HEART OF MERRIE ENGLAND. 

— BY THE — 

REV. JAMES S. STONE, D.D. 



" Dr. Stone writes well, with many poetic touches, a strong feeling for 
nature, a reverential spirit and a knowledge of his subject which appears on 
every page." New York Tribune. 

" Full of suggestion, and will amply repay the hours given to it." 

Churchman, N. Y. 

" An exceedingly interesting book." Christian Union, N. Y. 

" Full of charms for the reader who delights in rural scenes and sounds." 

Transcript, Boston. 

" No book on England, of the many we have read, so impresses us as this 
does with the fact that the author is in living contact with the people and 
understands them." Critic, N. Y. 

"The work of a by-road traveler, who used not only his eyes but his 
brain, and who, it is clear, knows also how to use his pen." 

Church Press, N. Y. 

" There are the brightness of sunshine and the fragrance of roses in every 
page ; humor, insight, feeling and scholarship displayed with a lightsome and 
happy faculty." The Church, Phila. 

" A storehouse of graceful and graphic writing. ... I have seldom 
come across a work of the kind that reveals so much novelty of treatment 
together with such keen and lively powers of observation and penetration. 

Editor of the Derbyshire Advertiser, England. 

" To the author's foot the soil of England is like moist moss, every step 
making it to stream with memory and tradition. . . . The book is always 
entertaining, and is thoroughly penetrated with the charm of its subject." 

Literary Opinion, London. 

PORTER & COATES, Publishers. 



READINGS 



IN 



Church History. 



BY THE 

REV. JAMES S." STONE, D. D. 




" Forsitan hsec aliquis, nam sunt quoque, parva vocabit 
Sed, quae non prosunt singula, multa juvant." 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PORTER & COATES. 






Copyright, 1889, 
By PORTER & COATES. 



PREFACE. 



The purpose of the present work is not to increase the 
number of text-books or to intrude into the domain of 
the finished and elaborate treatises with which scholars 
are familiar, but by a series of pleasing and instructive 
studies to lead the general reader both to further research 
and to a deeper love for the Church of God. The sequence 
of time and of order has been observed, yet each chapter 
is so designed that perusal need not be continuous or con- 
secutive. In these pages, as the master of history may 
find views expressed and interpretations given which 
will serve at least to support or to make known con- 
clusions not popularly recognized, so may the beginner 
discover a completeness which, though rude, is still 
sufficiently suggestive to leave upon the mind a cor- 
rect impression. 

References to authorities have not been given. Such, 
to readers unfamiliar with ecclesiastical history, are use- 
less, and to students are unnecessary ; in a work such 
as this they would be both perplexing and pedantic. 
Diligent care has been taken to secure accuracy and 
to avoid allowing prejudice either to create a shade or 
to tone an hypothesis. The aim has been to make 



4 PREFACE. 

theory, predilection and emotion conform to truth and 
to present a faithful and an impartial story. Doubtless 
even a slight acquaintance with original texts, contempo- 
rary records and modern commentaries increases temerity 
and conservatism ; in a subject so great one fears to be 
unique, and in a study where the past unfolds itself in 
mingled glories and in undying charm one dreads the 
severing of ties, the creating of new associations or the 
differing from judgments which have been carefully 
ascertained. Still, these readings have their own life. 
Even when sitting lovingly and reverently at the feet 
of the masters, learning their views and gathering their 
inspiration, the writer has told the story in his own way 
and according to his own soul. 

Allied with ecclesiastical history are antiquities, biog- 
raphy, folklore, polity, liturgies and philosophy, any one 
of which studies not only is extensive and exhausting, but 
also attracts into itself streams from many sources. To 
display the next to boundless expanse of erudition thus 
suggested, to exhibit the glory of a system which lays 
under tribute vast treasures of intellectual power and 
to convey an outline of the scenes and the ages through 
which the Church has passed, a treatise such as this 
must contain gleanings from many fields. Hence 
herein is something concerning the poetry, the prayers, 
the customs, the doctrines and the buildings which be- 
long to the ecclesiastical kingdom. Authors and books 
are examined — among the former, Augustine, Dante, 
Langley and Milton, and among the latter the Imitatio 



PREFACE. 5 

Christi and the Pilgrim's Progress. Monasticism, hym- 
nology and the Book of Common Prayer receive consid- 
erable illustration; the mediaeval era contributes of its 
splendor and the Reformation period of its interest; 
and legend, anecdote and folklore lighten the narrative. 
From this cause, possibly, the arrangement, choice and 
treatment of subjects are faulty ; without apparent rea- 
son much is omitted, inserted, hurried over or lin- 
gered upon. The book, however, must be judged as 
a whole; its details may take shelter under the lines 
of Ovid quoted on the title-page : " Perhaps some one 
will call these trivial matters, and so they are; yet 
what is of little good by itself, combined with others, 
effects much." 

These words of the poet suggest the course whereby 
a knowledge of history is acquired — " here a little and 
there a little ;" something even from a book such as this 
— not much in itself, perhaps, but with that which may 
be gleaned elsewhere helping to create those tastes and 
to complete those accomplishments which the student 
desires. He who would be familiar with the subject 
will not slight a trifling help, nor in the day when able 
to set aside elementary books will he despise the source 
whence came assistance. Better treatises have been writ- 
ten than Churton's Early English Church and Massing- 
berd's English Reformation, but on the scholar's shelves 
and in the scholar's heart these little volumes have an 
honorable place. Many books could be named no one of 
which is either profound in learning or original in style, 



6 PREFACE. 

but which, having been of use to the advanced student, 
are by him kindly remembered. The " line upon line " 
is the process by which is obtained the mastery. Not 
that the day will soon come when will be needed no 
more the guidance of men such as Professor Freeman, 
Bishop Stubbs, Canon Bright, Dr. Mommsen and Bishop 
Hefele ; when one can dispense with Milman, Neander, 
Robertson, Bryce, Grote, Wordsworth, Stanley, and the 
like; or when one will not require the accumulations of 
knowledge massed in the dictionaries edited by Dr. Wil- 
liam Smith, in the Encyclopedia Britannica and in the 
Dictionary of National Biography. These authors and 
these stores, together with others no less illustrious, 
will remain necessary ; only the book which serves as 
an introduction to them passes away. 

Undoubtedly for most readers original research is 
difficult and work such as that of a Jacob Grimm or 
a Joseph Bingham beyond possibility, yet to history — ■ 
notwithstanding the efforts needed to master the lan- 
guage and the style — a more lively interest is necessarily 
given by contemporaries than by later commentators. 
For instance, Matthew Paris, Roger de Hoveden and 
William of Malmesbury impart to the story of their 
times a reality and a vividness inimitable, a delightful 
quaintness and a satisfying authority. In Chaucer the 
fourteenth century lives again. The epistles of Cyprian 
display the character of the champion of monarchical 
episcopacy, and those of John the Golden-mouthed set 
forth the beauty of soul and the activity of life of the 



PREFACE. 7 

prince of preachers. In the Paston correspondence is 
pictured the family and social life of England in the fif- 
teenth century, while full of interest are collections such 
as those of the Parker Society, Sir Henry Ellis and Dr. 
Brewer. Evelyn and Pepys have a unique story; the 
Annates Monastici published by the master of the rolls 
open the abbey-doors of Osney, Worcester, Waverley, 
Bermondsey and Tewkesbury; Dugdale and Stow are 
without peers ; and as Thorpe records the ancient laws 
and institutes of England, so do Haddan and Stubbs 
give the documents relating to the early churches within 
the British Isles. Incommunicable is the charm of turn- 
ing over the leaves of a veritable Camden, of handling a 
charter or chronicle some centuries old or of decipher- 
ing an inscription on a mediaeval brass. To visit the 
scenes is to add to the force of history. The fiords of 
Norway and the islets of Scotland are fresh with the 
memories of bards and of vikings ; the Tower of Lon- 
don, the Cathedral of Milan, the Kremlin and the Vati- 
can have an inexhaustible interest; while Lesbos still 
speaks of Sappho and Alcseus, Salona of Diocletian, 
Cyprus of Richard and Berengaria, and Florence of 
Dante. The eleventh century is not dead to him who 
has stood beside the tomb of the Confessor, wandered in 
the fenland and over the field of Senlac, roved through 
the streets of Rouen and Sens, and watched the white- 
caps break on the rocks of Guernsey and Sark. So 
with other times. Indeed, the reader of history should 
aim to get beyond the commentary into the original 



8 PREFACE. 

authority, and to see the places in which the heroes 
wrought their work. More could be done than is 
thought possible. One book at a time; one scene 
well mastered before another is sought. 

Designedly to imitate an earlier age is unwise. The 
unconscious and inevitable tendency in time to repro- 
duce former phases may well be left to itself, but to 
endeavor to mould the nineteenth century after the fash- 
ion, say, of the thirteenth, the fourth or the first centu- 
ry is to swathe the living body in the cerements and 
the bandages of the grave. Possibly habits, virtues 
and deeds which make those eras glorious may be 
desirable; still, they were largely the creations of cir- 
cumstances which no longer exist, and under changed 
aspects most likely are no longer necessary. The ab- 
bey, for instance, served a purpose in days when might 
was right and the home-life was unknown ; the purpose 
passes away when law is recognized and privacy is 
sacred. Even worship may well have been symbol- 
ical and sensuous when people could neither read nor 
appreciate intellectual effort. Nor was the papacy with- 
out justification in periods when kings could not admin- 
ister justice and nations could not keep themselves from 
revolution, war and chaos. But under the altered con- 
ditions of modern life things which were once useful 
may become burdensome. For the Church now to fet- 
ter itself with an episcopacy such as Cyprian devised, or 
to fasten itself within the pound of a presbytery such 
as the seventeenth century loved, would be not only to 



PREFACE. 9 

destroy every possibility of growth, but also to strangle 
itself to death. And, as a fact, in ages when Christen- 
dom has done its greatest work it has readiest broken 
from a slavish submission to precedent, and has suffered 
itself freely to develop under the active, vivifying hand 
of the present. The sixteenth and the thirteenth cen- 
turies recognized to the full that God is in the " to-day " 
as truly as he was in the " yesterday." Things which 
in their nature are eternal — truths of God, the faith once 
delivered to the saints and ethical principles — may not 
be set aside ; but things which are temporary, brought 
forth by the exigences of the passing hour, expedient 
under certain necessities or purely the outcome of taste, 
may be suffered to perish. This book, therefore, while 
seeking to increase a love for the past, to draw from it 
lessons of encouragement and of warning, and to display 
something of its charm and its power, is not intended to 
favor a reproduction of that past. The eleventh century 
needed both a Glastonbury and a Hildebrand — the one 
may arouse imagination and the other kindle enthu- 
siasm — but in the nineteenth century there is no room 
for either. 

That which concerns time touches also space. Much 
is said herein of the Church of England, and it is said 
reverently and affectionately ; but no more fatal mistake 
can there be than for the daughter-churches to spend 
their energies in closely following even that queenly 
mother. America is not England, nor are Canada and 
Australia as is a country which reckons its age by millen- 



IO PREFACE. 

niums. The conditions of life beside the Mississippi and 
the Murray and those beside the Severn and the Thames 
are widely different; the new lands are to make history,' 
and not to copy history. There may be love and admi- 
ration, the closest and tenderest sympathy, but to attempt 
imitation simply for imitation's sake is to destroy free- 
dom ; and to seek to graft upon churches in the vigor 
of early youth customs and laws peculiar to an ancient 
establishment is folly. Flowers which grow in one cli- 
mate die in another ; things which are glorious on the 
eastern side of the Atlantic when brought to the west- 
ern appear absurdities ; and life becomes crippled in the 
desire to build outside of London a Tower and beyond 
the walls of Rome a Vatican. The churches of the An- 
glican communion cannot fail to retain the marks of 
their noble origin, but each must live its own life and 
follow its own career. There are some words of Lan- 
franc of Canterbury quoted in this volume which apply 
to this position. 

The reader must now be left to himself. If the book 
pleases and helps, the writer will be doubly gratified ; 
but should it fail to do either, then let the intention be 
thought of as well as the execution. 

Philadelphia, April 27, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Times of St. Ignatius the Martyr 13 

CHAPTER II. 
Early Ritual Poetry 39 

CHAPTER III. 
The Solitary Life 63 

CHAPTER IV. 
Growth of Monachism 104 

CHAPTER V. 
Echoes from Nic^ea 141 

CHAPTER VI. 
St. Martin of Tours 174 

CHAPTER VII. 
St. Monica and St. Augustine 194 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The British Land and Church 213 

11 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

The Conversion of England 230 

CHAPTER X. 
St. Guthlac and the Abbey of Croyland 260 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Glory of Canterbury 289 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Century of Splendor 330 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Beginnings of Reformation 373 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Saxon and Swiss 414 

CHAPTER XV. 
Henry, Wolsey and Cranmer 445 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Richard Hooker 494 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Puritan Supremacy 522 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Story and Spirit of the Prayer-Book 557 



Readings in Church History. 



CHAPTER I. 

€f)e &imt$ of jg>t ffgnattus rt)e JStartgr. 

An ancient author, Minucius Felix by name, writing 
about the year of our Lord 1 50, represents himself and 
two other young men walking on the low sea-beach at the 
mouth of the Tiber. They watched the gently-rippling 
water as it smoothed the sand and came up on the shore 
with crisp and curling waves. Near them were some 
boys whirling thin shells along the surface of the water, 
so as to make them skim from wave to wave or spring 
up with repeated bounds. The three friends sat down 
and began to talk of deep things — of things that be- 
longed to the Christ and to the soul of man. Step by 
step their thoughts were led away from the happy scene 
around them into the realm of mystery. One of them, 
the excellent and faithful Octavius, spoke of the Re- 
deemer and his resurrection, and in the end he summed 
up the whole idea of Christianity in words worthy of 
being written in letters of gold and preserved for all 
time : " We do not talk great things ; we live them." 

And such was the spirit of the Christians of the time 
of St. Ignatius the Martyr, the years about the end of 

13 



14 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the first century and the beginning of the second cen- 
tury of the present era. The religion of Jesus was more 
than a theory : it was a life. Before we speak of the 
martyr we shall consider the times. 

The origin and the triumph of the Church of the Lord 
Jesus are, indeed, among the most wonderful phenom- 
ena of which human experience is cognizant. That a 
small band of men without social or national standing, 
with no extraordinary gifts or rare abilities, and with 
neither the influence of wealth or position nor the phil- 
osophy and arts of the schools, should compel a world 
to accept their doctrines and should win kingdoms for 
their Lord were acts so far beyond all human probability 
that they can be regarded only as miraculous and in 
themselves expressions of the divine and the supernat- 
ural. Within the first century and a half of the Christian 
era not only had the Church established herself in Pales- 
tine, Syria, Armenia and the provinces of Asia Minor, 
but she had also touched Parthia and Arabia; in Africa, 
Egypt, Lybia, Cyrenaica and Ethiopia; the islands of 
Cyprus and Crete ; and in Europe, Greece, Macedonia, 
Thrace, Illyricum, Italy, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and pos- 
sibly Britain. This extension, apart from the divine 
nature of the Church, has been ascribed to the follow- 
ing causes : The inflexible and intolerant zeal of the 
Christians, the doctrine of the future life, the miracu- 
lous powers ascribed to the Church, the pure and austere 
morals of the Christians and the union and discipline of 
the Christian republic. But these causes are only sec- 
ondary. Greater than they is the Christ within the 
Church. 

Christianity is both a revelation and a development : 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 1 5 

its roots spring out of earthly soil ; its grace and beauty- 
come from heavenly suns. Both Judaism and paganism 
are by it laid under tribute ; they had truth — vital, grow- 
ing truth — which evolved and gathered strength with 
the flow of ages until the fulness of the time had come 
and the Christ appeared. And afterward the Church 
was largely moulded and enriched by external influences 
and given a power she could not have had had she re- 
mained as left by Galilean apostles. From Judaism she 
received much of her ritual element — a liturgical mode 
of worship, a love of hallowed and appropriate rites, a 
reverence for the material things which by consecration 
to the service of God were made holy; from Greece she 
received that spirit of learning and philosophy which led 
to the development and enunciation of doctrine; and 
from Rome she gathered the principles of organization 
and gained the knowledge of government. Nor has 
she ever refused to assimilate into her system whatever 
was pure and true in any of the religions with which she 
has been brought into contact, but with a wise and dis- 
creet flexibility she has recognized and adopted whatever 
was dear to man and acceptable to the Spirit of God. 

The early Church was largely composed of the mid- 
dle and lower classes of society. There were, indeed, 
converts from the wealthy and learned ranks, but for 
many years such were exceptional. This was the re- 
proach which Celsus, the first great polemical adversary 
of Christianity, later brought against the faith : none, 
said he, but uncultivated, poor, superstitious people, 
mechanics and slaves, became disciples: the Christians 
" manifestly show that they desire and are able to gain 
only over the silly and the mean and the stupid, with 



l6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

women and children." With the bitterest sarcasm and 
the most flippant raillery he attacks truths which the 
Christians held most dear, and stayed not even to com- 
pare the Christians themselves to a set of worms or frogs 
sitting and squabbling in the mud. Particularly did he 
dislike the promises of the gospel to the poor and mis- 
erable, scoffingly declaring, " God troubles himself no 
more about men than about monkeys and flies." But in 
proportion to the scorn with which the exalted and philo- 
sophical classes treated the poor downtrodden multitude, 
looking upon poverty as the greatest crime and regarding 
a slave as naught better than an animated tool, appeared 
the sweetness and the preciousness of the invitation of 
the Lord of the Christians, ' ' Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
Hence the " common people " heard him gladly. In 
every town and village of the Empire the outcasts from 
society were gathered into the flock of the Good Shep- 
herd who came to seek and to save that which was lost ; 
ever and anon some one in those proud, haughty ranks 
was touched and as a little child sought to enter into the 
kingdom of God ; and with the years the Church grew 
and multiplied and became a power in the earth. 

Ere long the Church found herself face to face with 
the outraged spirit of paganism. For Christianity was 
aggressive and offensive. It could not rest as one among 
many religions and admit that all were good and all were 
sincere ; on the contrary, it claimed to be itself alone true 
and every other system to be false. Nor did it rest at 
that : it proclaimed a warfare against all that was evil, 
erroneous or doubtful among men — a warfare that should 
not cease until all the kingdoms of the earth had be- 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 1 7 

come the kingdoms of God and of his Christ. This 
it was which provoked the followers of the older relig- 
ions. Had Christianity been content to recognize them, 
it would have escaped persecution ; for new gods were 
invented and new systems formulated day by day, and 
no one objected to every individual following the bent 
of his own devices. But to the disciple of the Lord 
Jesus such a compromise or such an inaction was im- 
possible. For him to admit that the men of Corinth and 
Cyprus might worship Aphrodite and they of Ephesus 
bow before the shrine of Diana was to deny the Christ ; 
and to deny the Christ was to rob God of his glory and 
himself of a part in the resurrection of the just. There- 
fore he lifted up his voice against the popular conception 
of religion, denounced the superstitions and vices which 
sprang therefrom, and refused alike to bend the knee in 
the worship of a Jupiter or an Apollo and to recognize 
the apotheosis of a Csesar. 

At first the priests and philosophers of heathenism 
treated with indifference the assumptions of a feeble 
and despised class ; then they smiled complacently and 
pityingly. After a while the rapid spread of these new 
ideas aroused their closer attention, eventually exciting 
their fears and kindling their animosities. What if these 
disciples of the Nazarene should triumph, after all? 
What if the Christ should overthrow the gods whom for 
ages the people had worshipped? And the more they 
thought of these possibilities and the more they exam- 
ined their own defences, so much the more they realized 
the inherent weakness of paganism and the irresistible 
strength of Christianity. Business, too, was touched : 
as people became Christians they gave up wearing amu- 
2 



1 8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

lets, burning incense, and buying images of the gods, 
Demetrius the silversmith was right : if this new relig- 
ion should prevail, there was great danger that the trade 
of those who made figures of the deities would come into 
disrepute. Nor would the Christians attend the sports 
or witness the bloody scenes of the amphitheatre ; they 
would not frequent the baths nor adorn their persons with 
cut flowers ; they condemned frivolous and unseemly 
conversation and opposed the use of obscene or ques- 
tionable figures either upon garments or upon walls ; 
their conversation ran upon things which were calcu- 
lated to subdue rather than to excite the passions, and 
to guide the thoughts away from the pleasures and the 
sufferings of this life to the land beyond the silver sky 
where peace and purity abide ; and thus their behavior 
affected society in general. Their holy life was a re- 
proach to their neighbor. Even in want they were 
happy, and in death they were brave. Free from the 
vices which degraded the heathen, their young men 
grew up strong and healthy and their maidens beauti- 
ful and chaste. Thrifty and industrious, kindly-affec- 
tioned one toward another, they became rich while 
others grew poor. And these are the things which 
irritate the world. The pagan ceased to laugh and 
began to hate. He beheld the changes working around 
him, and his contempt grew into scorn, and the scorn 
gathered strength until it became a fire of uncontrol- 
lable passion, and with bitter recklessness he sought to 
sweep Christianity from off the face of the earth. 

An opportunity for persecution soon offered itself. 
In the year 54, Nero, a youth of seventeen, the nephew 
of the infamous Caligula, became emperor. His cru- 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 1 9 

elty and licentiousness were early manifested ; his crimes, 
so many and so awful, exhibit at once the depravity of 
his nature and the degradation of an age which made 
it possible for so great a monster to occupy the imperial 
throne. Weak in character, frivolous in disposition and 
callous to suffering, he was carried along by the streams 
of vice whithersoever they flowed. One July night in 
the year 64 a fire broke out in the city of Rome. It 
originated among some wooden booths and shops in a 
part of the city where there were no houses or build- 
ings of solid masonry to check its progress. In spite 
of all attempts to extinguish it, in a little while the lower 
parts of the city became a sea of flame. For six days 
the fire raged, and was stopped only by pulling down 
a number of houses and thus leaving a vacant space in 
front of it. Soon afterward another fire began, in the 
northern part of the city, which continued for three days 
before it was put out. By these two fires many lives 
were lost and the greater part of Rome was destroyed. 
Wise steps were immediately taken to relieve the suf- 
ferings of the houseless and starving multitude, and to 
rebuild the city on a better plan and with less perishable 
materials. Nero was at Antium, thirty-eight miles from 
Rome, on the seashore, when the fire began, nor did he 
return to the city for some days after ; but, before long, 
ugly rumors were bruited abroad that he himself was 
the author of the conflagration. Some said that he 
desired to clear away the crooked, narrow streets and 
unsightly buildings which covered the older part of the 
city, that he might re-edify it in a manner becoming the 
splendor and wealth of an empire such as his. Certainly 
he did restore on a magnificent scale, and built a golden 



20 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

palace, in the porch of which he placed a colossal statue 
of himself, one hundred and twenty feet high. Others 
said that he caused the fire in a mere freak of madness. 
The horrible suspicion gained strength, and Nero found 
it necessary to discover some scapegoats to divert from 
himself the rage of the people. By this time the Chris- 
tians in Rome were sufficiently numerous and conspicu- 
ous to attract the notice and excite the fury of their 
enemies. Nothing could be more popular than a per- 
secution of them ; so Nero gave it out that it was the 
hated disciples of the Christ who fired the city, and he 
at once began to visit them with death. The populace 
were only too ready to help him in his dire onslaught. 
Multitudes of Christians were convicted and exposed 
to the most exquisite tortures. Some were covered with 
the skins of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs ; 
others perished on the cross or in the flames ; others 
again were covered with pitch, and were burnt after 
sunset as torches to light up the darkness. The exam- 
ple set at Rome spread in divers parts of the empire, 
and everywhere the Christians realized the fulfilment 
of their Master's words, " Ye shall be hated of all men 
for my name's sake." Doubtless many accepted the 
baptism of death gladly; among those who perished 
were St. Paul and St. Peter. Four years later Nero 
died at the hand of an assassin, and Vespasian reigned 
in his stead. 

About the same time the Jews of Judea again raised 
the standard of revolt, and in April, A. d. 70, an army 
of eighty thousand Romans, under the command of 
Titus, lay siege to Jerusalem. The Christians, for the 
most part, had already left the city, and had crossed the 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 21 

Jordan to the village of Pella ; but the place swarmed 
with Jewish pilgrims and refugees. Titus cut them off 
from all communication with the outer world, and speed- 
ily famine and pestilence broke out among them. The 
incidents of the siege are the most horrible in human 
literature. On the hills without was encamped the im- 
penetrable host of Rome ; within, the dead lay unburied 
in the streets and houses, the air reeked with death-deal- 
ing stench, mothers slew and devoured their own chil- 
dren, the city was seized with hunger, rage, despair and 
madness. " Verily, it became a cage of furious madmen, 
a city of howling wild beasts and of cannibals — a hell !" 
Then came the end. Through the broken walls poured 
the legions. They entered the streets in which lay 
the heaps of the slain and dying. The courts of the 
temple swam deep in blood. Amid the blazing ruins 
of the cloisters six thousand women and children miser- 
ably perished. Before the slaughter was ended more 
than a million victims died, and on the spot where the 
holy of holies had stood the Romans adored the insignia 
of their legions. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, and 
Titus fondly hoped that with one blow he had broken 
the power both of Judaism and of Christianity. Terri- 
ble and remorseless was Rome when enraged, boundless 
her resources and cruel the fire and sword which she 
sent to punish all who dared to resist her authority; 
and after a while the prince Titus went back to the city 
on the Tiber, where the people gave him an ovation and 
honored him with the title of Caesar. A few years later 
he received the purple, and reigned for two years. 

On the death of Titus his brother Domitian became 
emperor. He was by disposition jealous and suspi- 



22 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

cious, and, though the early years of his reign were 
marked with liberal and moderate superintendence, later 
he became the slave of cruelty and tyranny. His per- 
secution of the Christians was widespread and constant 
— not, indeed, so fierce and so unrelenting as the work 
of Nero, but such as caused much suffering. He it was 
who forced the aged John to leave his work at Ephesus 
and to labor as a convict in the quarries of Patmos. For 
fifteen years he reigned over the Roman world, and 
then, in A. d. 96, like Caligula and Nero, his life was cut 
off by the dagger of an assassin. The purple passed to 
Trajan. 

The effect of these persecutions was not to diminish 
the number of the Christians or to dampen their zeal. 
Later, Tertullian well expressed the fact : " The blood 
of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." The fiercer 
the enemies of the cross became, the stronger grew the 
grace of God. The conversion of the people still went 
on ; the kingdom spread throughout the Empire ; the 
Church remained loyal to her Lord; and soon men 
knew that they were striving to stay the tide of an 
ocean which none but God could control. Doubtless 
many pagans were drawn to the faith by the constancy 
of the martyrs. They saw how gladly these welcomed 
death for the sake of the lonely Nazarene; they won- 
dered at their enthusiasm, they admired their fortitude. 
" What is the secret of that strength ?" they asked ; the 
answer, " Jesus !" Then they too must know this Jesus ; 
and when from the heathen family the one Christian — 
perhaps the beloved and gentle daughter or the bright, 
stalwart son dear to all, pure and true — was dragged 
away to death, sometimes love must have suggested 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 2$ 

thoughts that could not be stilled until those left be- 
hind had found rest in that sweet one's Saviour. 

Within the Church persecution led to a rigid disci- 
pline. People were not to seek death ; on the contrary, 
they were to exercise all prudence in avoiding uncalled- 
for suffering. It was necessary, therefore, that none 
should be admitted to the number of the faithful who 
would either bring discredit upon the Church or betray 
the brethren to the persecutor. The daily life of the 
professor of Christianity was an object of interest to all. 
If that life did not correspond with the ideal of Christ, 
then must it cease to be called Christian ; and if the 
offender were not amenable to admonition, then must 
he be thrust out of the society and be unto the brethren 
as one of the heathen. The individual was called upon 
to give up certain pursuits and pleasures. He was nei- 
ther to help provide for the worship of the pagan nor 
be present at the services of the gods ; he was to dress 
soberly, act honorably and decorously, and at home, in 
business, among his friends and in the world so conduct 
himself as to give no occasion either for the believer to 
stumble or for the ungodly to blaspheme. Thus every 
one by example became a preacher of righteousness, 
and every one was taught that the glory of Christ was 
the first principle of conduct and the rule of life. 

Before a convert was admitted to holy baptism he 
passed through a prolonged preparation. He had to be 
instructed carefully in the principles of the faith, and by 
repeated trial manifest the strength and sincerity of his 
convictions. He was not allowed to attend more than 
a small part of the divine service, and never during his 
catechu menate to witness a celebration of the holy com- 



24 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

munion. For the Church performed her highest rites in 
secret, oftentimes in the silence of the night meeting in 
upper rooms, in lonely forest-depths, in dark caves, in 
unfrequented sepulchres or in deserted ruins — anywhere, 
indeed, where interruption could be avoided and the sa- 
cred things of religion saved from contempt and ridicule. 
Thus she came to be regarded as a secret society, and, 
since the Empire was honeycombed with such organi- 
zations, creating suspicion and fostering insurrection, 
when their suppression was sought she too suffered. 
Moreover, in order to avoid exposing her sacred mys- 
teries to the irreverent curiosity of the heathen, she 
taught the doctrines of Christianity largely by symbols. 
These symbols were gradually explained to the cate- 
chumen, until in time he was able to read their hidden 
meaning and appreciate their truth. For instance, he 
was shown a picture of a sheaf of wheat surmounted by 
a dove bearing an olive-branch, and having on the one 
side a serpent with raised head and on the other a lion 
with uplifted foot. He was told that the sheaf repre- 
sented the Church, God's wheat gathered out of this 
world's harvest-field and bound together by the bands 
of discipline ; the dove betokened the illuminating and 
guiding power of the Holy Ghost, bearing the promise 
of peace ; the serpent was that great enemy of souls 
who would, if possible, destroy the new creation even 
as he had injured the old one; and the lion was the 
emblem of Him of Juda, even the Lord of the Church, 
who stood ever by the Church to guard her from all 
attacks of Satan. Or, again, he was instructed in the 
meaning of the fish with which the early Christians 
adorned their walls. The Greek word for fish is t%duc 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 2$ 

and the letters of that word form the initials of five 
words signifying " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the 
Saviour," and thus the fish was the figure of the Lord. 
By such signs the Church concealed her truths from 
the unbeliever, and, as the unbeliever could not under- 
stand them, he was confirmed in his idea of the danger 
of the Church as a secret society. He was further per- 
plexed by the absence in the Christian assembly of any 
image of God. An altar there was, but plain and un- 
adorned and having no statue upon it. He concluded 
that the Christians were infidels — people, indeed, with- 
out a God. The catechumen, however, was taught the 
truth of the Invisible — of Him who is not to be figured 
in images of wood and stone. 

When sufficiently prepared, the convert was baptized 
— generally by immersion, though affusion was both 
allowed and practised. Confirmation, if the bishop 
were present, immediately followed — an act which con- 
firmed to the newly-admitted member all the rights and 
privileges of membership. The children of Christians 
were undoubtedly baptized in infancy and their training 
in the faith was solemnly entrusted to sponsors. Hence- 
forth the convert was allowed to be present at and to 
partake of the Holy Eucharist, and nothing but his own 
fault could deprive him of that privilege. And perhaps 
this secret discipline or economy of the early Church 
gave a clear meaning to certain ecclesiastical terms now 
much disputed. If the Christian erred, he was urged 
to confession, and this was made before the presbyter 
and the whole congregation. An adequate punishment 
was then prescribed — perhaps, according to the nature 
of the offence, suspension from the Eucharist, or even 



26 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

excommunication. During the time the sentence lasted 
the guilty member was not suffered to meet with his 
brethren in the higher acts of Christian worship, and 
his rights were held in abeyance. He was practically 
out of the Church, and in extreme cases deprived of 
the consolations and instructions of religion. When 
the punishment came to an end, he was set free from 
his disabilities, absolved and restored to the company 
of the faithful. 

There can be no reasonable doubt that the apostolate, 
so far as its order and jurisdiction went, was continued 
in the episcopate. To deny this is to deny the simple 
facts of the case, and is only done where one is afraid 
of the consequent conclusion. The bishop may not have 
had territorial authority or anything like our modern 
diocese, but he certainly had presbyters and deacons 
under him, and ruled over the congregations within 
and around the city in which he dwelt. At this early 
date he formed the centre of an independent unity — i. e., 
there was no organic confederation of dioceses and no 
supreme jurisdictions. Each little circle of congrega- 
tions was complete within itself, remaining in commu- 
nion and close sympathy with other circles, but man- 
aging its own affairs and making its own laws. Some 
of these circles were necessarily larger and more im- 
portant than others, and their bishops occupied positions 
accordingly. Thus, Alexandria, Antioch and Rome 
became great centres of Church-life, and were destined 
in time to gather around them the once-independent 
circles and form them into united patriarchates, with 
their own bishop as chief among his peers. But at 
the close of the first century each bishop is by himself: 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 27 

he rules within his own church or churches, assisted by 
his presbyters and deacons ; and the unity of the Church 
at large is maintained by his taking part with others of 
the same order as himself in the ordination of bishops 
for new or vacant sees. There is nothing to show that 
the bishop is an outgrowth of the presbytery; there is 
nothing to show that a bishop was ever ordained except 
by bishops ; and none can maintain that Irenaeus spake 
false when within a hundred years of the death of St. 
John he said, " We are in a position to reckon up those 
who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the 
churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these 
men to our own times." 

During this period the holy communion was adminis- 
tered every Sunday ; following the apostolic precedent, 
on the first day of the week the Christians met together 
for the breaking of bread. That the ceremonies were 
few and simple arose from the exigences of the times, 
but in places where persecution was less fierce and the 
church could assemble with some degree of safety it is 
possible that more elaborate usages were kept. The con- 
verts came from systems in which ritual was observed 
in all its fulness ; many customs they must needs have 
brought with them. They married and gave a higher 
ideal to the married life, but already the single life was 
growing in favor, and second marriages were soon to be 
severely condemned. They fasted, but without the pre- 
scription of the Church. They did not pray for the dead, 
but those who had fallen asleep in Jesus they regarded 
as still living, and they ceased not to ask God to add to 
their joys and to lead them on from glory to glory. One 
thing is certain : we may emulate, but we can never ex- 



28 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

eel, the piety, zeal and holiness of these early professors 
of the faith. 

As has already been stated, it was in the year 97 that 
Trajan became ruler of the Roman empire. He was a 
man of virtue and energy. In body strong and healthy, 
in appearance majestic, and at heart just and sincere, he 
wore the diadem for nineteen years with dignity to him- 
self and with benefit to his people. He is the only 
pagan emperor that Dante places in Paradise. Accord- 
ing to the legend, Gregory the Great, being sorry at 
heart that so good a prince should perish, prayed 
before the tomb of St. Peter that he might be saved. 
That night the pope was assured in a vision that his 
prayer was answered, but he was warned never again 
to pray for a pagan. Under Trajan the Empire reached 
its utmost territorial expansion. He built bridges and 
made roads ; his benevolence won for him the love of 
the poor and his wise bestowal of dignities the admira- 
tion of the rich, and he stands out in history as the con- 
trast of a Nero. 

But, so far as the Christians were concerned, a good 
emperor was more injurious than a bad one. His very 
virtues would make him more loyal to his own religion 
and more anxious to prevent the triumph of any rival 
system. He would be more jealous than ever for his 
own gods, and, since he would ascribe his successes to 
those gods, his sense of gratitude would lead him to 
defend their honor against all adversaries. Therefore, 
Trajan lifted up his hand against the Christ, and in his 
reign was carried out the third great persecution of the 
Church. 

Now appears one of the greatest of the martyrs. 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 29 

Antioch in Syria is on the banks of the Orontes, and 
within the shadow of the abrupt and lofty heights of 
Mount Silpius. It was a city of remarkable beauty, a 
capital of kings and governors,. possessing many mag- 
nificent structures, and famous to the pagans for the 
celebrated sanctuary of Apollo at Daphne near by, and 
to the Christians as being the early home of gentile 
Christianity and, next to Jerusalem, the place most 
intimately associated with the apostles. Here, in spite 
of the renown and splendor of the heathen worship, the 
church had grown in numbers, wealth and influence. 
Tradition asserts St. Peter to have been its first bishop, 
and Euodius its second ; history, however, only enables 
us to say that Ignatius held the episcopate about, or a 
little later than, the year 100. In time, Antioch became 
a patriarchate ; some thirty councils were held ' there, 
and, while among its bishops-metropolitan were such as 
Babylas, Meletius and Anastasius, to its presbyterate St. 
John Chrysostom gave unfading glory. 

The early life of Ignatius is shrouded in impenetrable 
gloom, for the legend which declares him to have been 
the child whom the Lord Jesus set up in the midst of 
the disciples is only a pious and curious invention. Even 
the story of his having sat with Polycarp at the feet of 
St. John has naught but probability to support it. Nor 
is it known from whence he came, what had been his 
career, how he happened to obtain the bishopric of An- 
tioch or what he did in that office. In truth, had it not 
been for his martyrdom, scarcely his name would have 
been remembered. But in the light which breaks upon 
him when a prisoner on his way from Antioch to Rome 
he appears distinctly and vividly as a vigorous and heroic 



30 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

personality, strong in his convictions, keen in his percep- 
tion of men and things, and dauntless in his faith and 
devotion. His integrity, forcefulness and zeal, with a 
love for the truth and a desire to die for his Lord, unite 
in giving him a grandeur of character both impressive 
and enduring. Probably that strong individualism, as 
much as the conspicuousness of his office, led to his 
arrest and condemnation. His spirit was irrepressible, 
his work thorough and aggressive, and none would be 
earlier than he in denying the authority of the Caesar to 
bid the faithful blaspheme the name of their Redeemer. 
But, whatever the reason, about the year 107 and in the 
reign of Trajan, he was on his way from his home in 
Syria to the great city of the West, there to be made the 
laughing-stock of a cruel populace and to be thrown to 
the lions of the amphitheatre. 

In that journey he had a foretaste of the end ; to use 
his own words, " From Syria even unto Rome I fight 
with wild beasts by land and sea, by night and by day, 
being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of 
soldiers, who only wax worse when they are kindly 
treated." He passed by Colossae, through Laodicea, 
Philadelphia and Sardis to Smyrna, where he tarried for 
a while. Here he was met and comforted by delegations 
from the churches in Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles, 
and from here he wrote an epistle to each of these 
churches, and also one to Rome. Nor were the Chris- 
tians of Smyrna behindhand: they ministered to his 
wants with an affectionate readiness, while to the gentle 
and holy Polycarp, their bishop, Ignatius afterward wrote, 
" I give exceeding glory that it hath been vouchsafed me 
to see thy blameless face." Hence he passed on by sea 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 3 1 

to Troas, from which place he wrote other epistles, re- 
spectively to Philadelphia, to Smyrna and to Polycarp. 

It is from these seven short letters — the genuineness 
of which has been set at rest by the masterly treatise of 
Bishop Lightfoot — that we gather all we know of the 
great martyr. They reveal his soul, flowing along in 
lines that seem like streams of fire, so warm and intense, 
so fervid and impetuous, are they. A " broken life " is 
there made known — that is to say, not a life such as that 
of St. Chrysostom, which from early consciousness had 
grown into Christ, but a life once of sin, and then, by a 
catastrophe as it were, dislocated and turned to God, 
such as in an Augustine and a John Bunyan. Out of 
these broken natures, as has well been said, are God's 
heroes made. The remembrance of what God has done 
for them is ever present and ever keen ; an enthusiasm 
is created which neither weakens nor passes away ; re- 
ligion becomes real, personal, absorbing, and no sacrifice 
is too great to make for the All-merciful. " It is good 
for me," says Ignatius, " to die for Jesus Christ rather 
than to reign over the farthest bounds of the earth." 

Accordingly, the martyr's love for Christ was great 
and intense : " Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus 
Christ" is the keynote of his life. To the Romans he 
writes, " Speak not of Jesus Christ, and withal desire the 
world ;" to the Ephesians, " It is meet for you in every 
way to glorify Jesus Christ, who glorified you ;" and to 
the Philadelphians, " Be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he 
himself was of his Father." So he speaks of Jesus the Be- 
loved as our Hope, our true, inseparable and never-failing 
Life, " apart from whom we have not true life." He 
urges, " Let nothing glitter in your eyes apart from 



32 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

him ;" and again, " In all purity and temperance abide 
ye in Christ Jesus." A deep experience is that which 
can say, " He that truly possesseth the word of Jesus is 
able also to hearken unto his silence." Responsibility is 
summed up in the line, " A Christian hath no authority 
over himself, but giveth his time to God." One may 
talk of Christianity, and another of Judaism ; " but if 
either the one or the other speak not concerning Jesus 
Christ, I look on them as tombstones and graves of the 
dead, whereon are inscribed only the names of men." 
Surely a man so full of devotion to the Redeemer might 
well say, " My charter is Jesus Christ ;" and yet in his 
humility, like many another pure and noble soul, he 
declares, " I have many deep thoughts in God ; but I 
take the measure of myself, lest I perish in my boasting." 
Thus, to Ignatius, Christ was the One above all others ; 
" the beloved prophets in their preaching pointed to 
him," and " where Jesus may be, there is the catholic 
Church." Never does he turn away his face from his 
Lord, but, steadfastly gazing into the glory, he becomes 
radiant with Christly light. Men knew his love ; upon 
his heart, they said, inscribed in letters of gold, was the 
name " Jesus." 

In such a man the vision of martyrdom awakened the 
most passionate enthusiasm. He longed to die for his 
Lord : the burden of his letter to the Romans is the 
pouring out of blood as a testimony for Jesus. He is 
afraid lest his life should be spared. " I dread your very 
love," he says to the Christians at Rome, " lest it do me 
an injury." He regarded himself as travelling from the 
East to the West that he might set from the world unto 
God : " If I shall suffer, then am I a freedman of Jesus 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 33 

Christ, and I shall rise free in him." In his deep earn- 
estness he cries, " The pangs of a new birth are upon 
me. Bear with me, brethren. Do not hinder me from 
living; do not desire my death. Bestow not on the 
world one who desireth to be God's, neither allure him 
with material things. Suffer me to receive the pure 
light." His bonds he regards as " spiritual pearls," and 
himself as " God's wheat :" " I am ground by the teeth 
of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread." There 
is no pride nor extravagance in this — nothing but a vivid 
realization of the splendor of Christ; he himself was 
naught : " Albeit I am in bonds and can comprehend 
heavenly things and the arrays of the angels and the 
musterings of the principalities — things visible and things 
invisible — I myself am not yet by reason of this a dis- 
ciple." Heroic souls think naught of self; looking into 
God's glory, they see not the shadows. Even death 
loses its personal effect : it is for others. So Ignatius 
could well say it was not his blood that brought the 
glory : " The blood of Jesus Christ, that is eternal and 
abiding joy." 

This devotion made him very anxious for the Church 
in Asia. Already was that land the hot-bed of heresy 
and the hive of schismatics. Some denied the reality of 
Christ's person and work : he only seemed to be and to 
do. Others desired the " former things " of Judaism. 
Many gave up the certainty of the gospel for the specu- 
lations of philosophy. In rebuking these errors Ignatius 
displays his theological skill. Incidentally he shows 
that the faith of the Church in the twofold nature of 
Christ was then as now. He combats the evils of the 
age with zeal and wisdom, and like a watchman on the 
3 



34 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

walls of Sion warns the Church of the threatening dis- 
ruption. 

His remedy for this deplorable state of affairs was 
loyalty to the bishop as the visible centre of unity. 
None of the Fathers are more pronounced or incisive 
on this point than he. Not that he supports or defends 
episcopacy : he assumes it to be the only possible order 
of the Church. He does not appear ever to have heard 
of any other system of ecclesiastical government. Had 
bishops been an innovation, some intimation must have 
escaped him ; but he simply speaks of that which is 
established and accepted. Nor does he use the word 
" bishop " as synonymous with " presbyter :" the three 
orders in the ministry are spoken of by name. Writing 
in A. D. 107, this is significant. His sentences run : " As 
the Lord did nothing without the Father, either by him- 
self or by the apostles, so neither do ye anything with- 
out the bishop and the presbyters ;" " He that doeth 
aught without the bishop and presbytery and deacons, 
this man is not clean in his conscience ;" " Ye should do 
nothing without the bishop ;" " In proportion as a man 
seeth that his bishop is silent, let him fear him the more ;" 
" Some persons have the bishop's name on their lips, but 
in everything act apart from him." On this testimony 
to episcopacy Bishop Lightfoot remarks, " The ecclesi- 
astical order was enforced by him almost solely as a 
security for the doctrinal purity. The unity of the body 
was a guarantee of the unity of the faith. The threefold 
ministry was the husk, the shell, which protected the 
precious kernel of the truth." 

Nor was Ignatius without the sweet and tender graces 
of human affection. In his letters he speaks of the kind- 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 35 

ness of the bishops and delegates who had been sent to 
him from the churches. Polycarp seems to have won 
his way into his very heart. The love of Onesimus of 
Ephesus he declares " passeth utterance." Many of his 
Smyrnsean friends he salutes by name — among them, 
"Alee, a name very dear to me, and Daphnus the in- 
comparable." In all his epistles he remembers the 
church at Antioch, now bereft of its bishop and suf- 
fering persecution : " Pray for the church which is in 
Syria." Impetuous and enthusiastic as he was, neither 
passion nor age nor authority marred the gentleness 
of his soul. Upon the branches of strength and amid 
the foliage of glory grew the flowers, pure, calm and 
beautiful, drinking in the sunshine and pouring out 
the fragrance. 

His practical good sense appears in such a paragraph 
as this : " Please the Captain in whose army ye serve, 
from whom also ye will receive your pay. Let none 
of you be found a deserter. Let your baptism abide 
with you as your shield ; your faith, as your helmet ; 
your love, as your spear; your patience, as your body- 
armor." 

When the bishop leaves Philippi, the gloom again 
settles around him. Legend has supplied the details 
of his martyrdom in Rome, but legend is unworthy 
of trust. That he testified for his Lord by blood and 
that his remains were taken back to Antioch is next to 
certain. An anniversary panegyric by St. Chrysostom to 
the Antiochenes is extant : " Ye sent him forth a bishop, 
and ye received him a martyr ; ye sent him forth with 
prayers, and ye received him with crowns." 

The best contemporary pagan account of the early 



$6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Christians is the famous letter written about this time 
by Pliny, governor of Bithynia, to the emperor Trajan. 
In it will be found much illustrating the age and the 
difficulties of a ruler who would obey the law and yet 
have mercy upon the offenders. After writing of other 
matters, he says : 

" I demanded of the accused themselves if they were 
Christians ; and if they admitted it, I repeated the ques- 
tion a second and a third time, threatening them with 
punishment; if they persisted, I ordered them to be led 
to execution. For I felt convinced that, whatever it might 
be they confessed they were, at any rate their unyield- 
ing obstinacy deserved punishment. Some others, who 
were Roman citizens, I decided should be sent to Rome 
for trial. In the course of the proceedings, as is gener- 
ally the case, the number of persons involved increased 
and several varieties appeared. An anonymous docu- 
ment was presented to me which contained the names 
of many. Those who denied that they were or ever 
had been Christians I thought should be released when 
they had, after my example, invoked the gods and offered 
incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered 
to be brought for the purpose along with those of the 
gods, and had also blasphemed Christ ; none of which 
things, it is said, can those who are really Christians be 
compelled to do. Others, who were accused by an in- 
former, first said they were Christians and then denied 
it, saying that they had been, but had ceased to be, some 
three years, some several and one twenty years ago. All 
adored your image and those of the gods, and blas- 
phemed Christ They declared that all the wrong they 
had committed, wittingly or unwittingly, was this — that 



THE TIMES OF ST. IGNATIUS THE MARTYR. 37 

they had been accustomed on a fixed day to meet before 
dawn and sing antiphonally a hymn to Christ as a God, 
and bind themselves by a solemn pledge not to commit 
any enormity, but to abstain from theft, brigandage and 
adultery, to keep their word, and not to refuse to restore 
what had been entrusted to their charge, if demanded. 
After these ceremonies they used to disperse, and assem- 
ble again to share a common meal of innocent food ; and 
even this they had given up after I had issued the edict 
by which, according to your instructions, I prohibited 
secret societies. I therefore considered it the more 
necessary, in order to ascertain what truth there was 
in this account, to examine two slave-girls who were 
called deaconesses, and even to use torture. I found 
nothing except a perverted and unbounded superstition 
I therefore have adjourned the investigation and has- 
tened to consult you, for I thought the matter was worth 
consulting you about, especially on account of the num- 
bers who are involved. For many of every rank and 
age and of both sexes are already and will be summoned 
to stand their trial. For this superstition has infected 
not only the towns, but also the villages and country ; 
yet it apparently can be checked and corrected. At any 
rate, it is certainly the case that the temples, which were 
almost deserted, begin to be frequented, the sacred cere- 
monies, which had long been interrupted, to be resumed, 
and there is a sale for fodder for the victims, for which 
previously hardly a buyer was to be found. From this 
one can easily conclude what a number of people may 
be reformed if they are given a chance of repentance." 

To this Trajan replied : 

" You have followed the right course, my dear Secun- 



38 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

dus, in investigating the cases of those who were de« 
nounced to you as Christians, for no fixed rule can be 
laid down for universal adoption. Search is not to be 
made for them ; if they are accused and convicted, they 
are to be punished, yet with the proviso that if a man 
denies he is a Christian and gives tangible proof of it by 
adoring our gods he shall by his repentance obtain par- 
don, however strong the suspicion against him may be. 
But no notice should be taken of anonymous accusations 
in any kind of proceeding, for they are of most evil pre- 
cedent, and are inconsistent with our times." 

No comment is needed. After much suffering " the 
perverted and unbounded superstition " became the 
religion of the Empire and the master of Caesars and 
proconsuls. 



CHAPTER II. 

<$arlg iftitttai ^oetrg. 

At the outset two facts concerning poets and poetry- 
may be emphasized. 

First, the probability that in the height of his inspira- 
tion a poet utters truth. Not that everything he says is 
true, only when he is under the full sway of his genius, 
when his soul has reached the state of exaltation and 
self-forgetfulness, when the world with its passions and 
ambitions, its views and theories, has faded out of his 
thought, and he becomes as a little child, pure in heart and 
conscience, moved only by a spirit from on high. Then, 

" As when a great thought strikes along the brain 
And flushes all the cheek," 

he writes, if not absolute, yet relative, truth. It may not 
be exactly what is commonly thought truth, for the 
popular conception may not agree therewith, though 
true wisdom will readier question the current idea than 
his utterance ; but upon examination it will be found 
that what he says contains the germs of vitality and 
verity — the two go together — and that it is the form 
rather than the spirit, the expression rather than the 
thought, that suggests error. The test of the truth will 
be found in the response which will be made to it by 
every true and noble heart. It will strike a deep soul- 

39 



40 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

chord, and that chord will vibrate and tremble. It will 
appeal to the intellect and move the emotions ; and the 
fuller the truth, the greater the effect. And, while the 
poet in his higher moods will utter naught but truth, 
even in his lower — and this is true of inferior poets also 
— he will say nothing that the people whom he is im- 
mediately addressing do not accept, or are not ready to 
accept, as truth. He will not care to sing that which is 
false, and his instinct tells him no one would care to hear 
it. Even fancy must have verisimilitude. 

Secondly, though the poet utters truth, or that which 
is believed to be truth, he is more or less a reflection of 
his own age, expressing its thought and feeling and pass- 
ing them through the crucible of his mind. Poetry 
brings facts into relation with the human soul. It is 
the gathering and arrangement of materials — sometimes 
by imagination absolute and unconditioned by the per- 
sonal or lyrical impulses of the poet, only to be found, 
by the way, in ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare and 
Homer, and therefore oftener under conditions beyond 
the control of the poet-writer. They all take hold of 
this material, from whatever source or by whatever 
means gleaned, and give to it an emotional and rhyth- 
mical language and the harmony and helpfulness of life. 
Yet in all- — in some more than in others — there is the 
coloring of the age in which they write. Even Shake- 
speare is not untouched, while Dante expresses largely 
the mediaeval world, as Spencer does the Elizabethan 
and Milton the Puritan. They gather their material out 
of the era to which they belong; and just as we appreci- 
ate that era, so will we appreciate its poet; and just as 
we appreciate the poet, so will we appreciate his era. 



EARLY RITUAL POETRY. 4 1 

Now, these two facts apply to the ritual poets or the 
hymn-writers of the Church as well as to all others who 
have sought to stir men's hearts by song — possibly 
more, because in their conscience they may have been 
regenerated and strengthened by the infusion of Chris- 
tian grace, though no true poet can be a bad man. The 
hymn-writer will certainly strive for truth ; if great, he 
will inevitably reach truth, but under any circumstances 
that will be his goal ; and he will also be moved by his 
age, impressed by it, uttering its conception of truth 
and putting into poetic form its deep heart-thoughts, its 
joys and beliefs. He will speak of truths and employ 
forms that all accept; the fact that they accept his work, 
that the Church uses it in her worship, age after age, 
throughout the world, is proof sufficient that he is only 
expressing the mind of Christian people and the concep- 
tions and conclusions of the Church. The coloring of 
the time is there — perhaps the coloring of all time ; and 
in the one case the use may come to an end, but for 
all that it was held to be truth when it was used. So 
we find that the hymns of the early Church are affected 
and colored by the tastes and feelings, the faith and prac- 
tice, of the early Church. When the ascetic spirit pre- 
vails, or the controversial, then the hymns of the period 
express its thought. Mediaeval Christianity erred too 
often in its sensuousness, and that sensuousness runs 
through many of the great mediaeval hymns ; at any rate, 
there are indelicacies and familiarities which agree not 
with our taste. The Reformation stamped itself upon 
its hymns ; and when, in the eighteenth century, religion 
began to deal more with metaphysics and experience, 
then the hymns became subjective and introspective. 



42 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Bad theology and a strong sentimentalism find their ex- 
pression in our own day in the rhyming which in some 
communities is accepted as superior to all the hymns 
that have ever been written, while ability to sing such 
effusions is regarded by many as a sure and certain sign 
of grace. 

In the early Church the singing of the hymns formed 
an important part of divine service. We have traces of 
this practice — and, indeed, traces of the hymns — in the 
sacred Scriptures of the New Testament. The injunc- 
tion of St. James that the merry should sing psalms and 
that of St. Paul enjoining " psalms and hymns and spirit- 
ual songs " had been anticipated in practice when the 
Lord Jesus and the apostles sang the Hallel at the last 
passover and the two Philippian prisoners lightened the 
midnight hours with hymns. The Magnificat, Bene- 
dictus and Nunc Dimittis have ever been recognized 
as appropriate for liturgical use. And there are in the 
Pauline Epistles several passages of the form and charac- 
ter of the later psalmody, so as to suggest their quota- 
tion from the primitive service- and hymn-books. In 
Ephesians v. 14 : " Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou 
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
give thee light;" 1 Tim. iii. 16: " And, without contro- 
versy " — b[ioXoyoufi£vio<; y id est, confessedly, " as is acknow- 
ledged on all hands " — " great is the mystery of godliness : 
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen 
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
world, received up into glory " (note the parallelism and 
concinnity of these latter lines) ; 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16 : " Who 
is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and 
Lord of lords ; who only hath immortality, dwelling in 



EARLY RITUAL POETRY. 43 

the light which no man can approach unto ; whom no 
man hath seen, nor can see : to whom be honor and 
power everlasting. Amen;" and 2 Timothy ii. u, 12: 
" It is a faithful saying : For if we be dead with him, we 
shall also live with him ; if we suffer we shall also reign 
with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us." Some 
have held that these passages were copied from the 
apostolic writings into the liturgies, and not from the 
liturgies into the apostolic writings — a hypothesis that 
cannot now be decided, though they appear in some 
instances as abrupt quotations, and in one as having 
not only rhythm, but rhyme. And it should be remem- 
bered that the use of liturgies was general in the Church 
long before the New-Testament writings were accepted 
as inspired or generally read throughout Christendom. 
One expression common in some form or other to them 
all should be noted — viz. : " light," sometimes " glory " 
and sometimes " reign," both, however, in the Oriental 
mind suggestive of brilliancy and splendor. So Simon 
spoke of Christ as " a Light to lighten the Gentiles ;" 
so Christ spoke of himself as " the Light of the world ;" 
and so the Church in its sub-apostolic days loved to 
sing of its divine Lord. 

When we pass from Holy Scripture, we find Ignatius, 
about the year 107, writing to the Roman church, "that 
being gathered together in love " — or yppoz yevojusvot, 
having formed themselves into a choir — " ye may sing 
praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus," and about the 
same time Pliny the Younger, in his epistle to Trajan, says 
that the Christians of Bithynia met together before day- 
light on a certain day of the week and sang a hymn to 
Christ as God. Later on, at the agapce, Tertullian says, 



44 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

"after the washing of hands and the bringing in of lights 
each one is asked to stand forth and sing, as he is able, 
a hymn to God, either from the Holy Scriptures or of 
his own composition." The indications are that the 
number of hymns in the early Church was much greater 
than might be supposed from the few that have come 
down to us. Though it was an age of persecution and 
tribulation, yet the Church was lightsome and glad at 
heart, and the relics of her psalmody in our posses- 
sion show her joy in sorrow and her hope and faith 
in trial. 

It is to St. Clement of Alexandria that the praise of 
leading the uninspired choir of Christian poets belongs. 
And there appears something providential that it should 
be so — certainly, if his lines have an apologetic value, 
for he " is the first to bring all the culture of the 
Greeks and all the speculations of the Christian here- 
tics to bear on the exposition of Christian truth." 
He lays the foundation of a systematic exhibition of 
Christian doctrine. A scholar full of human sympa- 
thies and endowed with remarkable powers of logic 
and observation, the learning of his age is at his feet ; 
he is at home with Grecian poetry and philosophy; 
he is mighty in the Scriptures. Keensighted, honest- 
hearted, plain-spoken, he exposes the social vices and 
extols the social virtues of his times, and few authors 
better deserve study than he. His surroundings in 
busy, learned Alexandria, with its catechetical schools 
and its noble library, and his simplicity and purity of 
character, fitted him as an intelligent and accurate ex- 
ponent of the truth, and therefore whatever he writes is 
dependable and important. He lived and wrote at the 



EARL Y RITUAL POE TR Y 45 

end of the second century, and among his works is the 
well-known " Hymn to Christ the Saviour." Versions 
of this hymn are many, but the rugged, abrupt compo- 
sition does not admit of exact translation. Its expres- 
sion is terse ; its thought, intense. There is a fervency 
of spirit, an earnest devotion, running through it, and 
in its direct and adoring address to Christ it proves 
conclusively that he who wrote it and they who used it 
regarded the Lord Jesus not only as the Redeemer, but 
as " God over all, blessed for evermore." It is well 
to remember that this hymn was written a century 
and more before the Nicene Council defined the faith 
concerning Christ, and is therefore a refutation of the 
charge sometimes made that in ante-Nicene times the 
deity of the Son was unrecognized and his worship un- 
known. 

But there are two other hymns, one strictly liturgical 
and both probably older than, certainly as old as, the 
time of Clemens Alexandrinus — viz., the Hymnus Angel- 
icus, or the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Eventide Hymn 
or the Hymn for the Lighting of the Lamps, the ipcoc, 
llapov d.yea£. The first of these appears in the Western 
liturgies, and the second is mentioned by St. Basil as 
ancient in his day; both are familiar to all. Add to 
these the Trisagion or Ter Sanctus and the Gloria 
Patri, both dating from the second century, and from 
the precious fragments of the ritual poetry of the 
early Church much may be gathered to strengthen 
faith in the divine character of Christianity. At any 
rate, whether their utterances be admitted to be truth 
or not, it must be allowed that they were the expres- 
sions of the poet's and the Church's faith, and uttered 



46 READINGS IN CRURCH HISTORY. 

that which the former believed and the latter accepted 
to be true. 

And, in order that the evidence so far may have its 
full value, mark some of the distinguishing features of 
the poetry of the first two centuries of the Christian era 
— a period long before the assembling of the Nicene 
Council and anterior to some of the greatest hymns 
of the Church, such as the Te Deum. 

I. For one thing, the hymns of this period are pecu- 
liar for their spirit of direct adoration. I had almost 
said " unique," in view of the fact that in later ages, and 
especially in the present age, most of the hymns used 
in divine worship are rather meditative and descriptive 
poems than direct addresses to Deity, and, if this be the 
idea of praise, unfit for ritual purposes. Yet these very 
poems are oftentimes — being, I suppose, set to pleasing 
music, and possibly also poetical and beautiful — most 
popular, and, indeed, appropriate for private use by the 
individual Christian. The same contrast may be dis- 
cerned in the prayers which in various ages men have 
offered up to the Almighty. Compare the devotions of 
the third and fourth centuries with those of the Puritan 
supremacy in England, and my meaning will be under- 
stood. The hymns of the period before us are pure ex- 
amples of worship. They are not narrative, didactic or 
hortatory effusions, merely sounding mellifluent or grand 
or solemn and devoid of the lyric element, and so unable 
to start one throb of lyric emotion. They are not intro- 
spective or experimental, nor expositions of doctrine and 
of Christian experience, nor sentimental or meditative, 
but full of sublime adoration and of exultant praise — 
objective rather than subjective, contemplative and eu- 



EARLY RITUAL POETRY. 47 

charistic, true utterances of faith and love, the flow of 
holy, intense, almost passionate devotion, a rich, full 
stream of soul-piety never once reflexive, never once 
thinking of self, but ever pouring, even rushing, onward 
and upward from the Church's inmost heart to the throne 
of Omnipotence and eternal grace. The poets and the 
singers of the early Church seem as though their lips — 
nay, their very souls — had been touched with angel- 
fingers, so that they should utter only words of divine 
praise; their eyes were open, so that they saw not so 
much into the cold, dark depths of the human heart, the 
sea of iniquity where monstrous thoughts and hideous 
imaginations move with serpentine stateliness or horrible 
power, but up through the rich saffron robe of Athena's 
glory, away past the radiance of Apollo's splendor, into 
the very light — the unapproachable light — of heaven, 
where, crowned King of kings and Lord of lords, God 
over all the gods of the earth, abides the Virgin-born, 
the Christ of Calvary. Only thus can we account for, 
say, that noblest song of all, the Te Deum, where every 
line is as a flight through space heavenward and God- 
ward and every line brings home to the soul the sweet- 
ness and the majesty, the truth and the preciousness, of 
the Saviour of men. The Church has never but this 
once, in this hymn of praise, this perfect outline of the 
gospel, swept as it were through the very gate of the 
city and united its voice with the cherubim and sera- 
phim, the apostles, prophets and martyrs, that utter 
their unceasing song before the everlasting Father. 
But the same spirit, though in less degree, runs through 
the hymns of the earlier centuries. The apostle bade 
the Christians sing psalms [ipaXpLOt;, (paco, rado), to sweep 



48 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the strings of the harp — nay, to suffer the sweet winds, 
breathed by the blessed Spirit out of heaven to play 
upon the chords of the heart, till purer and nobler than 
^Eolian strains which murmured through the pine trees 
of Cithseron or in tumultuous majesty uttered their voice 
over the foam-streaked waves of Poseidon's realm, or 
the jubilant chorus of the Muses around the altar of 
Zeus, should become the Gloria in Excelsis. 

And surely this outburst of adoration, this single- 
heartedness of worship, characteristic of the ritual 
hymns, has an evidential value. It proves, at any rate, 
the all-souled faith of the early Christians, their pure 
and unfaltering devotion, and thus implicitly the truth 
of the gospel. For poets write truth and men sing 
truth, or what they believe to be truth, and one cannot 
account for the coming into the world of this spirit such 
as runs through these hymns except upon the hypothesis 
of Christianity. Only contrast the moral superiority of 
St. Clement's hymn to Christ with all that the Attic 
Muse had ever produced, and one cannot but feel that 
nothing save an objective fact, a mighty impulse — in 
other words, a true revelation from Heaven — was the 
immediate cause. This spirit, remember, is not slowly 
evolved through time, but springs at once into being. 
It does not appear before the Christian era except 
among the Jews, and only among them to a limited ex- 
tent, but so soon as that era begins a new song is sung 
— the song of the redeemed. Of the power and sweet- 
ness of that song these fragments are suggestions ; and 
when we unite in the Gloria Patri or the Hymnus Angel- 
icus, we may, if we will, catch the echoes from those 
far-away ages when our predecessors in the faith were 



EARLY RITUAL POETRY. 49 

burning at heart with a new and real gospel and felt in 
all its freshness the truth of Jesus of Nazareth. 

2. Again, in the ritual poets of this period may be 
discerned the connection between Christianity and Juda- 
ism. The one is a development out of the other. It is 
the same Church through all the ages — from the patri- 
archal times, through the Mosaic dispensation and into 
the Christian era. The Lord Jesus is indeed the Found- 
er of Christianity and of the Church in its Christian 
development, but not — in his Incarnation, at least — of 
the Church itself. His life is an incident, the crowning 
glory, the magnificent climax, in the life of the Church. 
He himself declared that he came not to destroy the 
lav/, but to fulfil the law, and, seeing that the Church 
already had a ritual and an organization, there was no 
need that the New Testament should deal with those 
matters as the Pentateuch had done, save so far as would 
allow for the changes of times and circumstances and the 
necessities of evolution. The Church in its Jewish days 
changed according to exigences ; it should be free to do 
the same in its Christian age. But the broad basis lay 
on a Mosaic foundation, high priest, priest and Levite 
passing into bishop, priest and deacon ; circumcision, 
into baptism ; the passover, into the holy Eucharist ; 
Jewish commemorations, into Christian festivals ; the 
Sabbath, into the Lord's day ; Mosaic sacrifices of pro- 
pitiation, into Christian sacrifices of memorial and 
thanksgiving; prophetic types, into fulfilled antitypes. 
Failure to recognize this fact has led to much confu- 
sion and has been a fruitful source of error, but the 
fact is impressed upon the hymns of the early Church. 
They follow a Jewish, and not a Greek or a Roman, 

4 



SO READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

model. It is not till the end of the fourth century is 
reached that a Christian hymn is written purely after the 
Greek form and spirit. Then in Synesius of Cyrene, 
bishop of Ptolemais (378-431), who in his young days 
had been the Anacreon of gay society and had misused 
his gifts in vanity, appeared the Anacreon of the Church. 
His lyric beginning " Come to me, shrill-sounding lyre, 
after the Teian song," is full of vigor, fire and truth, 
and, in common with his other pieces, replete with rich 
pagan images and forms of speech at times sweetly poet- 
ical, but entirely in the measure and tone of the glory 
of Ionia — " the swan of Teos." From that day Chris- 
tian hymns have been composed after many models 
other than Hebrew. Not that this is in any sense a 
misfortune. It is one of the most delightful and dis- 
tinctive characteristics of Christianity that it has been 
able to glean beauties and powers from heathen sources, 
even as men gather gems from mountain-rents and gold 
from river-mud, and consecrate them to the service and 
glory of its divine Lord ; and, in fact, so it would seem, 
when any rite, ceremony, practice or thought is ascribed 
to a pagan source, there is implicitly admitted the su- 
preme power, the supernatural might, of our holy relig- 
ion — nay, its very celestial origin — for it has taken hold 
of truths floating mistily and uncertainly in men's minds, 
truths that have touched men's hearts, though they were 
heathen hearts, and has given them vitality and eternity, 
the immortality which is its peculiar gift, and robed them 
in vestments of beauty and loveliness, in garments of 
regeneration and heaven-born purity. But the poets 
of the first two centuries did not look so far abroad as 
this. They were almost entirely confined to the Hebrew 



EARL Y RITUAL POETR Y 5 I 

world of thought, either having been born in it or at 
conversion largely passing under its sway. Their hymns 
are neither polished nor ornate ; they have little or none 
of the finish of the classic odes and songs ; they are not 
metrical, but fall into the Hebrew parallelism — not ex- 
actly an imitation, save in a loose sense, only more like 
that than anything else. They look, therefore, very like 
prose, long lines and short lines, abrupt, terse, unfinished, 
at times even rude, and mostly of a lower type than the 
Hebrew poetry, because none of the early Christian 
poets had the fulness and power of the genius of David 
or Isaiah. The only exception to this assertion is the 
unknown author of the Te Deum, whose work — speak- 
ing reverently — is from a literary point of view equal to 
anything contained in the Old Testament, and superior 
to anything in hymnology written since. 

And it is, to say the least, remarkable, if the revela- 
tion of Jesus Christ be untrue, that Judaism should sud- 
denly develop into Christianity — develop in the course 
of a short century a literature, a cultus and a life which, 
though springing out of, were speedily differentiated from, 
those of the Judaism which remained in its undeveloped 
state. Compare the Gloria in Excelsis and the Clemen- 
tine Hymn to Christ, or the golden-flowing song of 
Ambrose and Augustine, with the Psalms of David, 
and there appear both a form and an expression similar, 
clearly from the one source or model, but a spirit divides 
the one from the other, making the one a near song, a 
song of soul-stirring sweetness close at hand, distinct in 
its utterances and clear in its melody, and the other like 
delightful but vague music which floats through the 
evening air from far-off singers, broken by the winds, 



52 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

weakened by the distance, uncertain and confused, and 
yet with a positive charm and an undefined grace which 
move the imagination and send the memory back again 
to life's fond summer days. Christ is in the Psalms, but 
he is veiled, clouded, and only the glory shines through 
the mist — glory like that of Aurora when she first draws 
aside the clouds of the morning and the god of the stream- 
ing sunlight breaks with suffused and softened radiance 
through the September fog, though this glory has glis- 
tened against angel-robes, and is therefore more wonder- 
ful ; but in the Christian hymns the mists have all passed 
away, and there is seen Christ clear and distinct, the robe 
of pure whiteness falling in folds of grace and beauty to 
his feet, the diadem of empire resting upon his brow and 
the sceptre of righteousness in his hand. The Christian 
song tells of meridian splendor and of meridian clearness, 
and we ask who lifted the veil, who removed the mist. 
At what moment in time began the difference? for a 
difference great and important there is. Why should a 
Mary sing a Magnificat and an Ignatius rise up into a 
Trisagion ? Only because a new Life has come into 
the world, even Christ the Lord. The Church in its 
onward flow through time, like a great river proceeding 
out of the throne of God, its springs in grace and its 
brooks in mercy and love, has reached a point where a 
change mighty and decided happens, and ever after it 
feels the results of that change. It is the moment when 
the movement of the ocean-tides begins to make itself 
felt in the river-waters, and the stream is moved, enno- 
bled, rises and falls, its wavelets and its undercurrents 
endowed with mightier strength, until it throbs with the 
force and life, the freedom and anticipation, of the eter- 



EARL Y RITUAL FOE TRY. 53 

nal sea. Clement could not write the lines of David, 
nor could David, for another reason, write the Hymn to 
Christ ; nay, to come down to within fifty years of the 
divine Advent, the writer of the eighteen hymns known 
as the Psalter of Solomon could no more have done it 
than could the inspired singer of Israel. 

3. And as in the early ritual hymns we may discern 
the development of Christianity out of Judaism, so we 
may also see the value attached to the position and 
authority of the Jewish Scriptures by the Christian 
Church. There were heretics in the early ages as 
well as in later times who held that the Old Testa- 
ment was altogether contrary to the New. And yet 
not only was the Old Testament publicly read in the 
church, but the Psalms were — doubtless from the days 
of the apostles, certainly from the sub-apostolic age — 
sung in the divine service. The probability is that 
they were chanted in the same antiphonal style, to 
much the same music and by a white-robed choir, as 
among the Jews. It is a mistake to suppose that the 
early Church was so plain and simple as to reject all 
ritual and ceremonial ; on the contrary, both Jewish and 
pagan tastes would lead to an ornate mode of worship, 
and while, on the one hand, persecution was neither 
so constant nor universal, nor yet so feared, as to pre- 
vent the Christians from doing what they thought best, 
so, on the other hand, we have no positive disapproval 
— indeed, no implication even of disapproval — from the 
Lord Jesus of a complete and gorgeous ritual ; but as a 
matter of fact we know that both he and his apostles 
frequented the temple and took part in acts which were 
symbolical, liturgical, sumptuous and ceremonial. No 



54 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

proof has ever been advanced from the New Testament, 
for the simple reason that there is no proof forthcoming, 
against the continuance of this Jewish spirit in an elab- 
orate and ornamental Christian worship. At all events, 
the Psalms entered into the use of the Church. 

But the hymns, the uninspired hymns, were them- 
selves very thoroughly impregnated with Scripture. 
They were not only imbued with the spirit of the in- 
spired writings, but were also full of their phraseology 
and form. No better illustration of this exists than the 
Gloria in Excelsis, which is almost wholly made up of 
words from the sacred book. The Trisagion is an echo 
of the seraphic song recorded by Isaiah, an anticipation 
of the anthem of the redeemed. In the Clementine 
Hymn to Christ there is the same stern brevity, the 
same abruptness, the same style of language and rapid 
change of figure, which mark the Hebrew poetry, while 
the epithets applied to the Saviour are largely scriptural. 
We may trace Homer in Virgil and both Homer and 
Virgil in Dante ; we may discover the most perfect ex- 
pression of Greek poetic thought in Keats and hear the 
ring of the old ballads, so wondrously sweet, in Chat- 
terton ; and we may find the words, thoughts and emo- 
tions of the Old Testament in the early Christian poets, 
only in fuller and more absolute measure. That was the 
mine whence they gathered their jewelled songs, the 
garden whence came the flowers they wove into gar- 
lands of glory for their Lord. Some speak of them as 
weak and worthless, nor have they the power of inspira- 
tion ; but in the winter morning upon the window the 
frost depicts the figures of the palms that grow beside 
the Nile, the tracery of forests that wave beneath south- 



EA RL Y RITUAL POETRY. 55 

ern skies. And these old ritual poets, though they have 
not the warmth and glow, the rapt vision and soul-trance, 
of Hebrew poets, yet even with their different powers 
give the same truths, the same thoughts, very cop- 
ies of what is accepted as divine ; so that men look 
thereon and realize that they came forth from and were 
moved by the same spirit. There is the impress of the 
word of God upon their work, clear, distinct, positive, 
even as the outline of sun-shadows in the summer and 
the rainbow-hues upon the wings of birds and the blos- 
soms of flowers. At times one forgets that some of 
these hymns were uninspired, so like are they unto 
their divine source — sprays cast off by an earthly foun- 
tain so like the rain that falls from heavenly clouds. 

Again, in this clinging to Scripture we have surely an 
evidence, if not directly of the truth of Christianity, yet 
certainly of the sincerity of its poets and professors. 
For men cannot be brought into so close contact with 
not the mere letter, but the very inner spirit, of the 
word, and remain conscious deceivers; nay, the very 
coloring which their thoughts receive in passing from 
the Old Testament into the form of their hymns neces- 
sitates the fact of Christianity. No man could invent 
or find out the truths of which they write, even with 
the Jewish Scriptures in his hand, unless fact had given 
him the key. With that key the prophecies are plain, 
but after four or five centuries of speculation the rabbin- 
ical schools failed utterly to evolve anything like the in- 
terpretation into which the Christian poets fell so read- 
ily and speedily. Had Christ not come, no one would 
ever have seen him in the Psalms ; but, having come, 
then the Psalms are found to be full of him. The 



56 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

hymn-writers went to the Jewish Scriptures — later on, 
indeed, to pagan authors — to cull figures and expres- 
sions for use in a system, and even to set forth a system, 
that no honest men, true poets such as they were, could 
have fabricated, which would, indeed, have baffled the 
most ingenious of human minds, and which no one 
could hope would be accepted for any length of time 
by any number of thinking people. The Hebrew poets 
went far into mystery — farther than Egyptian or Grecian 
seer — but the Christian poets went farther still, on the 
same road and in the same direction, but beyond, even 
until the radiance of the inner glory shone round about 
them. 

4. And then, lastly, in these early poets may be found 
the testimony to Christ. This is their highest evidential 
value, and is of especial importance in answer first to 
those who hold that the doctrine of the deity of Christ 
was an after-thought, a development, belonging to the 
Nicene period, and secondly to those who deny, if not 
the historic fact, yet the moral significance, of the re- 
demption. The testimony that the believers sang hymns 
and psalms to Christ as divine is supported not only by 
Christian writers, but also by the fragments of poetry 
which remain. In them is direct worship of the Lord 
Jesus. In the Gloria Patri, as in the baptismal words, 
the Son is adored and placed upon the same level as the 
Father. In the Gloria in Excelsis he is the " Lord," the 
" Lord God," the only Lord, and the central position of 
that eucharistic hymn is given up to the Christ. But there 
is a difference between these strictly liturgical hymns 
and the other ritual hymns of which mention has been 
made. These are subdued, the others are exultant ; 



EARL Y Rl TUA L POETRY. $? 

these are sparing in their use of figures, the others are 
lavish and extravagant. This is so, perhaps, because 
the two Doxologies partake as much of the nature of the 
Creed as of the hymn — that is to say, of the formal, litur- 
gical Creed, the calm, deliberate and authoritative state- 
ment of doctrine ; and therefore they have a peculiar 
worth, not greater than that of other hymns, but peculiar 
in that it is impossible to say that in them reason has 
given place to emotion, though emotion — real poetic 
emotion — is as likely to be true as is reason itself. The 
only figures used in the one case are those of " son " 
and " lamb," and they are so woven into both Jewish 
and Christian teaching as almost to have lost their met- 
aphorical character. But Clement's Hymn is full of epi- 
thets. Jesus is the Shepherd of royal lambs, the King 
of saints, the all-subduing Word of the most high Father, 
the Ruler of wisdom, the Support of sorrows, the Saviour 
of the human race, the heavenly Wing of the all-holy flock, 
the holy King, the immeasurable Age, the eternal Light, 
the Fount of mercy and the God of peace. From first to 
last the great Alexandrian never loses sight of the redeem- 
ing Lord. His is the name above every name ; he is all 
and in all. These ascriptions, these characterizations, 
are given to no mere man — or, at least, to one whom 
the writer thought to be mere man — but to One whom 
he believed, whom they who sang his words believed, 
to be God over all, blessed for evermore. And it is per- 
haps worthy of note that in the age of doctrinal purity 
in which these lines were written there is neither the 
deifying of humanity nor the carnalizing of deity which 
in the corrupt mediaeval times entered so largely into 
Christian theology. The best test of the apostolicity 



58 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and the purity of the Anglican faith is that they who 
profess that faith feel that Clement's hymn is their 
hymn; it expresses exactly their belief and accords 
with their taste; but when we read some, not all, of 
the mediaeval hymns, we discern a gulf between us and 
them — the gulf which separates a pure from a corrupt 
religion. The Catholic faith is that the Lord Jesus is 
perfect God and perfect man, and therefore his sacred 
body never becomes divine nor his deity human. How, 
then, can it be right to give worship to his blood or his 
face or his heart or his wounds ? The total absence of 
this spirit from the early hymns proves its innovation, 
and therefore probable error ; the lack of sympathy with 
it in the intelligent Christian tests his adherence to the 
faith once delivered to the saints. 

The beautiful hymn used by the early Christians at 
the lighting of the evening lamps has already been 
mentioned. The darkening shadows thickened, night 
came on apace, and as the lights were being kindled the 
words of adoration were offered up to Christ : 

" Hail, gladdening Light of his pure glory poured !" 

The Nicene Creed catches the echo of that line when it 
affirms Christ to be "Light out of light" — the glory 
streaming through the world's gloom from the throne 
of Majesty. It has been in all ages the favorite figure 
of Christ, drawn from prophetic utterance, used of him- 
self by himself, suggested by innumerable analogies and 
by pagan conceptions. And to the ancients light was 
itself a thing divine ; the Greeks personified it, the pure, 
rich sunlight, by Apollo, he who rode in his chariot of 
splendor up through the gates of the east, across merid- 



EA RL Y RITUAL POETRY. 59 

ian heavens, until his tired steeds refreshed themselves 
in the western waters — he who brought daily restoration, 
passionate gladness, perfect life, bright hopes and new 
strength to the sons of men and made nature itself lovely, 
the birds to sing with joy, the flowers to bloom with 
grace, and the sea-waves to glitter and gleam with daz- 
zling brightness and pour their milk-white breaking 
crests into the billowy depths of darkened purple. 
Such was light, the noble, vigorous, kind Apollo, to the 
ancients — a thing divine, a person equal to Demeter, 
Poseidon and Athenaia, but far above all inferior deities 
and infinitely far above man. And in the early Chris- 
tian monuments Apollo becomes Christ; just as the 
poets call him the light, so the sculptors figure him by 
the youthful, beaming, happy Greek god. Had they 
not thought of Jesus as divine, this could not have been, 
for to no merely human being fell any of the attributes of 
pagan deities : they all flowed back again to Him who 
is God of all. And later on, just as light had been used 
as a figure of Christ, so another figure came in, also sug- 
gested by Hebrew prophets and Greek singers and tend- 
ing to support the same truth — that of the rose. Not only 
is this flower the most beautiful of flowers, but it is also 
the most beautiful result or expression of the sun's light 
on earth — here, of the pure white, the snow of the clouds ; 
there, of the ruby and the crimson and the pink of the 
rainbow, fragrant and lovely as though formed and kissed 
by angels. And to the Greeks the rose expressed the 
worship of the light, the adoration of Apollo. This 
Christ inherits because he is divine ; he becomes the 
Rose, the Light, the Sun. When the early Christians, 
therefore, transferred these figures from their old gods 



60 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

to him, seeing in the flower not only the Incarnation, 
the light taking to itself an earthly form and earthly 
substance, but also the image and brightness of the eter- 
nal glory, and in the light the Author of existence, 
health and happiness, they affirmed his deity ; for to 
none but to God could they have yielded this homage. 

Other figures and metaphors were applied by the 
early ritual poets to Christ ; let this be an indication of 
the wealth and beauty which lie folded up in them. No 
need is there to show how this affirmation of Christ's 
deity goes to support other truths, such as those of 
the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Fain 
would we refer to hymns in periods later than these 
first two Christian centuries, to hymns that are dear to 
the Church — to those of Ephraem the Syrian, the first 
voluminous Christian poet, ascetic and gloomy, yet full 
of noble praise ; to those of Synesius ; to Methodius's 
"The Bridegroom Cometh;" to Bernard's "Jesu dulcis 
memoria;" and to the evening hymn of Anatolius, which 
to the present day is sung by the people of Chios and 
Mitylene, and is not unknown to us : 

" The day is past and over ; 

All thanks, O Lord, to thee!" 

These, however, come too late to have any great apolo- 
getic value, priceless though they be in a spiritual and 
literary sense. They are full of Christ, tributes of genius 
laid at his feet, incense of piety ever going up to his 
throne, anticipations of the praise that shall be ren- 
dered him when the days of this tribulation shall be 
overpast and every child of God shall see him as he is. 
It may perhaps be said that there were also heretical 



EARLY RITUAL POETRY. 6 1 

and even pagan hymns. The former, however, finding 
no echo in humanity and having no gift of life, have 
perished ; the latter, though generally inferior to the 
best of Christian lyrics, are not without some verity. 
Here and there a line flashes out of the darkness of a 
heathen poet and lights up the soul ; it has power and 
vitality to touch the brighter and better conscience. And 
herein, as already pointed out, lies one of the tests of true 
poetry. It cannot deceive ; men feel that the poet ex- 
presses their emotions and thoughts, and puts into living 
and imperishable words that which passes through their 
own hearts and minds. The hymn is as the flute played 
under a great bell. Sound the right note, and then the 
clear silvery rill quivers in response. To every other note 
the bell is silent; only one, and that the right one, has the 
power. And the singers sing in the church ; and when 
they sing the right, true song, then the Church responds, 
the great Christian heart replies. The early ritual poets 
have had their answer. The Glorias, the Trisagion, the 
ipcoc, llapov, the hymn of Clement, have stirred, and will 
stir through all the aa;es, the souls of men — stirred them 
to higher and sublimer hope and faith, stirred them 
till they perforce have sung their " Alleluia !" and 
" Amen !" stirred them till they have forgotten earth 
with all its sorrows and cares and sins, and have thought 
themselves amid the white-robed choir of saints and 
angels in the very presence of the King. 



CHAPTER III. 

OTje j&olitars ILife- 

A movement such as monasticism, which retained its 
vigor and glory for more than a thousand years, and 
during that period took a prominent part in the propa- 
gation and in the definition of the faith, must needs 
demand attention and study. Its consequences remain 
though it has passed away. By its efforts the Teutonic 
and Keltic lands of Europe were converted to Christian- 
ity; in ages of ignorance and oppression it afforded 
within the houses which it established a refuge to the 
weak and the needy, a home to the scholar and the re- 
cluse ; and throughout its millennium of life its voice 
was ever on the side of order and conservatism in mat- 
ters both ecclesiastical and devotional. That in the six- 
teenth century it was well it should as a system be brok- 
en up few students of its later history will deny, but 
that it is to be judged throughout its entire career by 
the years of its decline and decay is manifestly unjust. 
It had done its work, accomplished its purpose, and 
then it naturally and as a matter of course passed away 
— not so much, after all, from outside pressure as from 
inside worthlessness. But, humanly speaking, in earlier 
ages it is next to certain that the monastery was indis- 
pensable to the preservation not only of literature and 
of art, but also of society and of the Church. With- 

62 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 63 

out monachism much that we now cherish would have 
been lost. 

Yet this was not the object with which the system 
came into being ; such a work was a development un- 
foreseen and undesigned, and in itself indicated a par- 
tial falling away from the original purpose. The ancho- 
rets of the wilderness could not have dreamed of estab- 
lishments after the fashion of Glastonbury ; such an 
evolution was certainly far outside the range of their 
imagination. And, though the abbey grew out of the 
hermitage and the- community out of the solitary, and 
were therefore organically connected, yet the one pre- 
sents a far different aspect and accomplishes an alto- 
gether different work than the other. Possibly it will 
also be held that one had a romance and a poetry which 
the other had not, only it is doubtful if as a whole to 
its inmates and contemporaries the monastery appeared 
otherwise than as plain, severe and commonplace. We 
have thrown upon it the charm, and, with the same in- 
consistency with which we condemn the mediaeval 
period and then imitate and preserve its art, literature 
and buildings, we reject and glorify, we cherish and cast 
aside. Still, there was an attraction mighty and lasting 
which led men to give up all and live the life of a 
brother. 

It is not to the development of monachism as it pre- 
sented itself after the time of Benedict, but to the causes 
and to the first beginnings of the system, that we would 
direct attention. A similar spirit, indeed, had existed 
in heathen religions, and also notably among the Jews 
of the late pre-Christian age. 

The earliest mention of the Jewish sect of Essenes is 



64 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

about 150 b. c, and, though not referred to by name in 
either the sacred or the rabbinical writings, they are dealt 
with at some length in the pages of Philo and Josephus. 
They present the most illustrious and the most extreme 
example of asceticism in the ancient world. In a pe- 
riod of swiftly-decaying national life, when irremediable 
corruption was driving the people on to absolute and 
unavoidable ruin, and vice and dishonor reigned in high 
places and existed unchecked among the masses, they 
sought by absolute separation from the world and 
by deeds of sel/-abnegation and denial to obtain that 
satisfaction which can flow only from pure and uninter- 
rupted communion with God. It is certain that to their 
original Judaism they added speculations derived from 
pagan sources, for in the little we know of their relig- 
ious doctrines and views there are unmistakable traces 
of the teachings of Pythagoras, Plato and Zoroaster — 
a strange mingling with the truth of the Old Testament 
of Parseeism, Stoicism and general Greek philosophy. 
These exoteric drifts may, indeed, have flowed into the 
system partly during the captivity in Babylon, but it is 
most likely they were the gatherings of a transitional 
and eclectic age when old ideas, having been weighed 
in the balances and found wanting, were supplemented 
and interpreted by new thoughts from outside sources. 
Be that as it may, though the Essenes bound themselves 
by terrible oaths to the most profound secrecy concern- 
ing their principles, there is no doubt that they were 
absorbed in theosophic speculations and tinged with the 
Oriental doctrine of the essential and eternal impurity 
and sinfulness of matter. 

The practical aim of their system was, therefore, to 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 6$ 

bring the soul out of its corrupting bondage, to subdue 
and conquer the flesh — the source of defilement and the 
cause of estrangement from God — and to give to the 
mind not only supremacy, but also absolute possession. 
Many of the means used to this end were in them- 
selves of the highest worth. Justice, truth, honesty, the 
reverence for and obedience to authority and an unsel- 
fish benevolence to one another and to mankind in gen- 
eral were virtues not only commended, but rigorously 
enforced and constantly practised. The pursuit of agri- 
culture and necessary trades rather than that of com- 
merce was ordained as most conducive to the highest 
moral and physical health. The brethren lived in small 
communities scattered throughout Palestine ; they gave 
up their possessions and wages and avoided the accumu- 
lation of wealth ; officers elected by the society admin- 
istered its rules and enforced unquestioning obedience ; 
and, though there were no vows of silence, no penances 
and no self-chastisement, yet there was a tranquil and 
holy atmosphere in the " house " strangely and delight- 
fully in contrast to that which existed in the world. 
Bread and vegetables, given in two daily meals and pre- 
pared by the special officers of the community, were 
alone allowed for food ; meat and wine were positively 
forbidden. Before the dawn the brethren arose from 
slumber, and as the sun-rays spread over the earth, with 
faces turned to the light, they said their morning prayer. 
Possibly they may have offered their intercession and 
adoration to the sun — not as in itself divine, but as the 
fullest expression and most constant reminder of the 
power and glory of the Creator ; a touch of Parseeism, 
also a metaphysical distinction which has by no means 



66 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

passed away. They then began their round of daily 
pursuits, consisting of repeated lustrations, hours of 
contemplation and seasons of labor. All excitement 
was avoided : a conversation void of any aberration of 
passion, hasty utterance or undue interest and a content- 
ment shadeless of murmuring were needful if the soul 
would enter the higher calm. If they rejected all pleas- 
ure as evil, theirs was the first society in the world 
which condemned slavery and forbade war. Nor, ex- 
cept in the solitary instance of initiation to their mys- 
teries, did they consider a vow or an oath lawful ; the 
Essene, being taught the majesty of truth and the dis- 
grace and filth of falsehood, was satisfied with simple 
affirmation. Marriage was repudiated — not so much 
on account of any supposed impurity, but because the 
brethren were convinced of the artfulness and fickleness 
of the sex; nevertheless, they adopted children and 
brought them up in their principles. Adults only were 
admitted to the society, and at the beginning of the 
three years' novitiate the candidate was presented with 
the three emblems of purity — the spade, the apron and 
the white dress. The clothes and the shoes were not 
renewed until they were torn in pieces or worn com- 
pletely away. 

A community thus separated from the busy world and 
observing a life such as is here presented was not with- 
out influence. Their countrymen saw in their unselfish 
behavior a reproof and in their teachings a mystery. 
They were rigorous in their observance of the Sab- 
bath and determined in their loyalty to Moses; they 
also knew things hidden from the great body of Jews, 
secrets and rites which they had gathered from lofty 



THE SOLITAR Y LIFE. 67 

and strange religionists, and which by contemplation 
and prayer they had clarified. Pure, unselfish, truth- 
ful, simple in their habits ; abstemious in their food 
and gentle in their demeanor ; kind to the sick and the 
afflicted ; hospitable to strangers ; obedient to that dis- 
cipline which by continual mortification of the body 
wrought the purification of the soul ; avoiding alike the 
wines of the banquet, the ointments and perfumes of the 
lavatory and the dress of the worldling ; strictly honest, 
chaste, industrious, peaceful and devout, — the Essenes 
were among the men of their day inimitable as the sun- 
dyed ripples on the darkened stream and unapproach- 
able as the pure lighted snow upon the mountain-peaks. 
To themselves the result of their life was highly satis- 
factory. Not only did they live healthily and to a great 
age, but they also obtained freedom from the evil influ- 
ences of matter, a command over nature, the power of 
prediction and miraculous cures, and, above all, fellow- 
ship with the divine. 

Though Jews, they did not frequent either synagogue 
or temple. Every meal was to them a sacrifice, and they 
had their own teachers and their own priests ; the one 
instructed them in their mysteries, the other prepared 
their food. The Scriptures were interpreted allegori- 
cally. In lustrations they approached the Pharisees ; 
in their denial of the resurrection, the Sadducees ; but 
the former was not merely to conform with ritual law, 
nor did the latter arise from a rationalistic tendency. 
Matter was evil ; the spirit which had been enticed and 
beguiled into the body, and by it made both a prisoner 
and a sinner, needed to be freed from its pollution ; and 
when freed the body would perish for ever. The flesh 



68 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

was the cause of all wickedness, and the design and aim 
of the present life was to break away from its bond- 
age of corruption and regain pristine and pure liberty- 
When dissolution came, the soul of the good would 
leave its prison-house and joyously wing its way to the 
land beyond the ocean — to the country oppressed by 
neither rain nor snow nor heat, but refreshed by a gen- 
tle west wind blowing continually from the sea. There 
could be no resurrection, no rebinding of the freed spirit 
to the impure material; the husk had been cast off for 
ever, and the apotheosis of death was the end of all 
contact with this world. This sublime though pagan 
assumption was the keynote of the Essenic life and 
principles. It has its echoes from Persian philosophy 
and its coloring from Grecian myths. 

The community does not seem at any time to have 
numbered more than four thousand souls. Its chief 
settlement was on the western shores of the Dead Sea, 
where amid the weird and lonely desolation Nature in 
her bright moods covers the water with sapphire tints 
and the mountains with variegated hues, and in her 
darker moments brings the thick mist or the deadly 
heat creeping over the barren rocks, banishes every sign 
of life from human ken, and makes the awful silence 
more intense by the dull surging of the waves as they 
break upon the salt-encrusted shore. In this wilder- 
ness, far from the haunts of men, the brethren sought, 
the peace of God. Some, less favored, lived and 
worked elsewhere ; these looked beyond the hills of 
Moab for the Light-giver, watched the stars drop their 
tiny rays upon the dark sea, listened to the imprisoned 
and impassioned spirit of Nature as in the lone winds 



THE SOLITAR Y LIFE. 69 

the cry of sorrow passed through the ravine, and waited 
in patience till the day when the soul should go back 
again to its home beyond the floods of the pure blue 
ether. Whether they escaped opposition or were able 
to maintain inviolate their high rule of morality we 
know not; only it would seem that the Mishnah 
pointed at them when it prohibited the public reading 
of the law by any except those who wore a colored 
dress, and it is certain that for some breaches of law 
excommunication was contemplated, if not enforced. 
This punishment was equivalent to starvation and 
death, for the culprit was bound by oath and by con- 
viction not to touch food prepared by any except the 
officers of the society. 

The Essenes disappeared during the wars in which 
Jerusalem fell. Their principles passed into other 
forces and had their expression in other forms, but the 
society itself perished for ever. As no land was holy 
except Palestine, they made no foothold elsewhere ; in- 
deed, by their own teaching purity elsewhere was neces- 
sarily impossible. The spirit, however, which had pro- 
duced them, and the example which they set, led to the 
creation in other lands of societies similar in aim and 
like in development. 

Egypt was the birthplace of Christian monachism. 
From that land of mystery and mysticism went out 
the spirit which overspread Christendom and gave to 
the religion of Jesus a new expression and to some 
phases of the older systems a new life. Possibly the 
same causes which led to its development there would 
have tended independently and in like manner to its de- 



70 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

velopment elsewhere, but it was from Egyptian example 
and from Egyptain disciples that the kindling enthusi- 
asm proceeded — the spark which set into a widespread 
and irresistible fire the material ready to hand. Then 
ancient illustrations and -modern emotions and needs 
received a vital and ready application. 

Christianity in establishing itself in Egypt had rapid- 
ly made its way among two widely-dissimilar elements 
of the population. Both foreigners and natives had felt 
its influence and come under its sway. The Jews, more 
cosmopolitan and commercial than their brethren of Pal- 
estine, accepted freely the faith of the Crucified ; the 
Greeks, keensighted, ever ready to pry into new theories 
and to adopt new views, were in no way behindhand ; 
and thus in Alexandria was speedily built up a strong 
church which became a power not only in the evangel- 
ization of Egypt, but also in the evolution and expres- 
sion of Christianity. From the stranger- dwellers the 
faith spread to the subject-people of the land, the de- 
scendants of the ancient and mighty race over which 
the Pharaohs had proudly ruled, now the tributaries 
and helots of the empurpled and powerful Caesar. 
These, religious by instinct and heredity, having 
wearied of the old creed and seeing in Christianity a 
doctrine of the future life more refined than that which 
their fathers knew, and better calculated to make their 
life of servitude bearable, with avidity and joy accepted 
the gospel. To them the socialism of Christianity and 
its theory of suffering were peculiarly attractive ; they 
were thereby taught the brotherhood of man and the 
power of bearing ill for Christ's sake. A bond of union 
deeper and more sympathetic than aught else could pro- 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. J\ 

duce was brought about between them and the large 
mass of Europeans and Asiatics in their midst. The 
mingled races, one in Christ Jesus, whose system rec- 
ognized neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, knelt 
together before a common altar and worshipped and 
obeyed a common Lord. 

But the two elements naturally and essentially dif- 
fered ; they were one in the faith, but they looked upon 
the faith from varying positions. The spirit of the for- 
eigners was philosophical ; that of the natives was mys- 
tical. The one would thoughtfully and systematically 
examine into and define the doctrines and principles of 
religion ; the other would rather look upon the worth- 
lessness of things visible and temporal, and by contem- 
plation, fasting and prayer seek to bring the soul into 
ecstatic communion and absolute fusion with God. 
This latter view, while speculative and visionary, was 
all-powerful in its grasp upon the mind, enabling it, in 
its efforts to overcome the alienation between God and 
man, to stifle and sacrifice self and its affections, to 
sever the present irretrievably and completely from the 
past, and to conclude itself interpenetrated with and 
able both to see and to taste the essence of deity. It 
is subjective and introspective, destroying self-gratula- 
tion, ethical responsibility, masculine energy and phil- 
osophical activity. It is passive, sensuous and feminine 
— the material out of which are alike developed the 
holiness which makes the saint and the morbidity which 
belongs to the madman. In this soil grew the seeds of 
monachism, and it is worthy of reflection that, as the 
religion of Egypt had influenced Mosaism, so now in 
another form it influenced Christianity. 



72 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Mysticism was, however, rather the receptive princi- 
ple than the predisposing cause, for mysticism alone 
could scarcely have produced so rapid and luxuriant a 
growth. Other factors came in, stronger, more imme- 
diate and more pronounced, and, though some of these 
more decidedly prepared the way and strengthened the 
structure of the system in other lands, yet all were 
present and active in Egypt. 

Among the first of the causes leading to monachism 
was that love of retirement and meditation, that inclina- 
tion to repose and quiet, natural — or, at least, common — 
in lands bordering on vast deserts and of warm climate. 
Great heat is not conducive to active, practical life; hence 
even the Greeks and the Romans, though they had 
subjugated the land of the Pharaohs, were in their turn 
overthrown and had their supremacy destroyed by the 
inflowing hosts of the North. Artistic and poetic tastes, 
fervid, sensuous and passionate, are, indeed, created and 
ripened ; imagination attains a force and glow of un- 
equalled intensity; splendor of architecture, brilliancy 
of habit and sententiousness of speech have a magnif- 
icent and fantastic display ; and all that tends to a luxu- 
rious and voluptuous indolence is developed. Glories 
such as the cold Transalpine countries of Europe can 
only dream of had their living reality on the banks of 
the Ganges, the Euphrates and the Nile. The social 
life of the nineteenth century has few such rich colors 
or exquisite expressions as those which adorned the 
civilization of Egypt when in the undulations of its 
progress its lines rose like pinnacled peaks luminous 
with clouds and painted with sunbeams into heights 
of splendid prosperity, and mighty princes built the pyr- 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 73 

amids, and the house of the Ramessides subdued nations. 
But such warm magnificence is neither enduring in time 
nor precious in value. Whatever happiness it may have 
given, however beautiful the visions of glory it may have 
shown, the most constraining tendency of the people of 
the heated meridiana has ever been to restfulness. Their 
greatest happiness lies in inaction. When a strange lord 
ruled over the cities and the bright green fields beside 
the Nile, there was still peace in the deserts beyond 
the limestone hills. In the solitude, beside some palm- 
shaded spring in the wilderness, the recluse could find 
his highest felicity and dream his fondest dreams. 
No more awful figure of the desolation of the human 
heart and of the emptiness of human life could he find 
than was afforded in those seas of silent sand and that 
sky of cloudless heat. Undisturbed by even so much 
as the winds of heaven, he could contemplate himself 
and his God, the red glow of sunshine creeping from 
far across the expanse suggesting the dawn of that day 
when, as the light envelops and drowns in glory all 
things, so the Deity shall be all and in all, the dying 
radiance in the west teaching that the time is not yet. 
It is not to be supposed that this love of retirement 
had for every individual so great a result. On the con- 
trary, being a tendency evolved largely from the con- 
ditions of climate, it oftentimes ended in simple indo- 
lence. Souls differ. Noble and exalted spirits are not 
common even now among men ; by far the greater num- 
ber are ruled by selfishness and animality. Only here 
and there is one found of lofty excellence and sublime 
devotion in whom the spiritual nature prevails over the 
sensual, and in whose life the image of God shines with 



74 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

a pure light and a gentle grace. Faults in such there 
will be — lines and shadows cast upon the purity from 
the surroundings of evil, discords from the chaos of sin 
mingling with the heaven-given calm — but they will be 
made to bring out in bold relief the virtues and to has- 
ten the soul on to its higher destiny. Only, while in a 
clime such as that of England such a spirit would find 
its sphere in active work, in religious and philanthropic 
enterprises, in a land such as Egypt it would instinct- 
ively turn to the lonely quiet and the trancelike medi- 
tation. Undoubtedly, the busy merchant in Alexandria 
or the driver of the camels across the desert would have 
the more commonplace — some may say the more com- 
mon-sense — view of religion and be content with saying 
his prayers and doing his alms, but then neither the 
merchant nor the driver would possess that nature which 
like the pellucid dewdrop can bear the delicate tints of 
soft sunbeams. They would be of coarser mould — good, 
perhaps, upright, honest, thrifty, but of ruder, denser 
material, and not only indifferent to the higher spiritual 
life, but positively ignorant of it. From their midst, 
perhaps from among the lads who cried the shopman's 
wares or goaded the camels' sides, would spring up 
some one who as by an inspiration would be possessed 
with desires which mundane pursuits can never satisfy, 
and whose soul would crave not merely for peace of 
mind, but for complete absorption into God. Before 
such a one would lie the quiet of the desert and the 
intensity of reflection. 

A more decided cause had its origin in the Gnostic 
belief, already widely prevalent in the Church, of the 
essential evil of matter. This belief, held by the pagan 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 75 

Platonists, and even approved of by the Jew Philo, was 
positively denounced by Christian teachers such as 
Clement of Alexandria, who held that matter as well 
as spirit, substance as well as form, was created by God. 
But in those days this doctrine alone seemed to afford 
a reason for the imperfections of the universe — pain, sin, 
waste and inequality. Thus many held that in man was 
a duality of principles or natures — the spirit, made in the 
image of God and possessing that likeness which the 
illustrious author of the Pcedagogns calls the " love- 
charm " which makes man dear to God for his own 
sake ; and the flesh, sinful not merely in its tendencies, 
but also in its very being, the enslaver, the tempter and 
the destroyer of the psychical principle. The former, 
indeed, at one time had been a pure, free spirit abiding 
in heavenly regions ; it had been enticed, entrapped and 
caught by the body. Its life was now a struggle for 
liberty, a desperate effort to strip itself of the cerements 
of sin and the corruption of evil — of this gross moisture 
of decay. The shackles of flesh bound the soul in ever- 
growing bondage. It was led on from iniquity to in- 
iquity, from wickedness to wickedness, its once white 
robe dragged in the blackening mire of filth, its noble 
aspirations daily becoming weaker, its pinions of faith 
by which it had been borne up into the realms of pure 
realization cut even as the fowler clips the wings of the 
snare-bird, and before it there were naught but misery 
and suffering and what to it was worse than either — the 
shame and bitterness of everlasting sin. In such a view 
of the body there was no room for pleasure in its graces 
or for delight in its beauties. The most exquisite form, 
whether displayed in the strong figure of man or in the 



?6 READINGS IN CHURCH HIS TOR Y. 

sweet, sylph-lined loveliness of the woman, was an ob- 
ject, not of admiration, but rather of warning and terror. 
There was not merely sin in the body : it was itself sin ; 
and the more perfect its strength or its grace, the more 
complete and the more awful its evil. Some, indeed, went 
so far as to teach that man was a creation of the powers 
of darkness, Adam imbued with cupidity and Eve with 
seductive sensuousness. The object of religion, the duty 
of existence, was now for the soul to war incessantly 
against the flesh, its twin-self — to shun the allurements 
of beauty and to avoid the gratification of desire. The 
body must not be pampered or in any way indulged ; on 
the contrary, it should be tormented, as a sentient being, 
to the utmost of endurance. If it wanted ease or sleep, it 
should be forced to toil and wakefulness ; if it craved 
food, it should be compelled to fast ; pain should be its 
portion and unsatisfied lo/iging and unrelieved degra- 
dation its discipline. It was a wicked thing, an emana- 
tion of vileness, an offspring of Satan, and it deserved no 
better treatment. 

Such a severe and inhuman view had grown out of 
the Zarathustrianism of Persia and the Buddhaism of 
India ; it had met with favor from both Jews and Hellen- 
ists, and had both affected the Essenes and pervaded 
largely primitive Christian faith and philosophy ; and 
in Mani of Ecbatana it received its fullest development. 
In the thoughtful and eclectic church of Alexandria, not- 
withstanding the earnest opposition brought against it, its 
influence became dominant, while to the popular mind — 
to the man who had adopted Christianity without relin- 
quishing paganism — it had lively attractions and gave 
considerable satisfaction. 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 77 

Nay, such passages as the latter part of the seventh 
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans at first sight to 
some must have seemed to favor this view. Further 
study might, indeed, have revealed the important distinc- 
tion between sin as a separate force within the body and 
sin as the nature of the body ; but when the Gnostic or 
Manichaean theory had once taken possession of the 
mind, such discriminations would have had little force. 
Christ himself had warned the disciples not to take 
thought for the body; it was not more valuable than 
the fowls of the air or the grass of the field, and was 
not for an instant to be compared to the soul, which is 
divine and immortal. True, the body was the temple of 
the Holy Ghost and the flesh would rise again, but that 
was, if literal, only after the intense purification of fire, 
the revivifying of dust thrice calcined and cleansed, 
and if allegorical was easily made consonant with this 
teaching. 

Thus not only would the pure and earnest-minded 
Christian of the East have the tendency to separate him- 
self from his fellows and in solitary places think the deep 
thoughts of the soul, but he would also have the intense 
conviction that he must be freed from an essential part 
of himself. In the pursuits and comforts of social life 
this could not be dona ; he must go to the wilderness 
and battle there alone. 

Equally powerful and closely similar, but not neces- 
sarily connected, was the principle of asceticism. This 
too was of pagan origin, and was common among the 
nations of the Orient. Mighty in its influence in India, 
it was scarcely less decided among the adherents of 
Greek philosophy. Pythagoras and Socrates insisted 



78 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

upon its practice; in the Cynics and the Stoics it had 
illustrious exemplars ; the Platonists, the Essenes and 
the Therapeutae were alike under its influence ; and in the 
systems evolved at Alexandria by the Neo-Platonic and 
Neo-Pythagorean schools it was of primal importance. 
Christianity itself, at once both a revelation and an evo- 
lution, with ready powers of adaptation and assimilation, 
became imbued with the universal idea. The religious 
atmosphere of those early ages was filled with this 
supreme theory of moral and religious discipline, and 
the early adherents of the cross were not less positive in 
their practice and observance than were the pagan relig- 
ionists. All who held in any form whatever that divine 
and human alienation could be removed only when the 
soul was absorbed into deity also held that such absorp- 
tion could be obtained only by the cultivation of the 
spirit and the mortification of the body. They might or 
they might not believe in the evil of matter : it was suffi- 
cient if they recognized the fact that the attributes and 
the qualities of both body and soul were made the means 
of sin, the channels of wickedness. Their minds were 
imbued with the nothingness of things temporal and 
the absolute consequence of things eternal, the tran- 
sitoriness of earthly life and earthly sorrows and pleas- 
ures, the reality underlying the phenomena of human 
existence and the mysteries of human destiny, and, 
above all, the sublime and awe-inspiring fact of God. 
What were the years of the pilgrimage beside the ages 
of the rest ? This life, compared with eternity, is but a 
pin-point in a boundless ocean. Its joys are empty 
shadows ; its successes or failures, of small moment. 
Through the ruined, broken walls may stream the light ; 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 79 

indeed, the walls are reft asunder, sorrow and tribulation 
are sent, in order that the darkness may be scattered and 
the gloom pass away. Higher than all the sensual 
delights of earth, the realized ambitions, the unresisted 
influence and the inexhaustible wealth of even princes, 
were the pure mind, the peaceful conscience, the hope 
of heaven and the love of God. These transcendent 
blessings were to be gained only by severe and con- 
stant discipline. A rigid abstinence from all things not 
immediately connected with the loftiest pursuits of re- 
ligion; self-sacrifice, self-denial, self-restraint, fasting, 
prayer, poverty, obedience, resignation and ceaseless 
concentration of thought upon the divine, — these were 
the means by which the devout of either pagan or 
Christian profession might rise into the heights of celes- 
tial calm and win the benediction of the Most High. 
And, though with wisdom and experience Origen says, 
" I do not think any one's heart can become so pure that 
thoughts of evil never stain it," yet few in these latter 
days are prepared to censure the austere and rigid sub- 
duing of the bodily desires by which the men of those 
early days sought to enter into the realization of the 
loftiest and grandest ideals. 

They in whom the spirit of asceticism dwells in fullest 
measure are generally forgetful of their duty to the world 
in which God has placed them. The elevation of one's 
own self is the all-controlling design. Neither kindli- 
ness of feeling nor liberality of judgment is manifested 
toward those who are not as they are. However lumi- 
nous and exultant may be that side of the soul which is 
turned heavenward, that which is shown to the people 
of earth is unmistakably darksome and severe. In no 



80 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

age are men and women of ordinary flesh and blood, 
with the instincts and habits of nature developed, at their 
ease when in close contact with those whose customs are 
painfully strict. There is a gulf between them, and the 
part the ascetic takes is not to cast across that gulf the 
light of gladness and the voice of encouragement, but to 
stand in the glory of heaven and create a cold, repellant 
shadow. Separation is indeed the best thing for both : 
to the one the selfish and extravagant claims to holiness 
and to the other the indifference and laxity of life are 
distressing and distasteful. Nevertheless, in the imme- 
diate post-apostolic age there was no positive attempt on 
the side of asceticism to seclusion. Israel and the mixed 
multitude which came up with Israel out of bondage 
dwelt together and were content by precept and example 
to do something for the kingdom. 

The Church was, indeed, itself ascetic, and for all its 
members prescribed a strict discipline. Everything that 
could accentuate the fact of difference between Christian 
and pagan was enjoined and enforced. Even St. Paul 
forbade marriages with unbelievers. Stringent regula- 
tions were made against all possible connection with 
idolatry. Christians were to have no part in building 
temples or in making images. They were neither to 
sell incense for heathen worship nor to buy the meat 
which had been offered to idols. To attend a pagan 
service or to practice the arts of divination, magic or 
enchantment was also prohibited, while to be present as 
a spectator, much less as an actor, at the games in the 
cirque or at the plays in the theatre was judged deserv- 
ing of excommunication. Frequent fastings, simple 
habits and costumes, abstinence from pleasures and 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 8 1 

businesses condemned by the Church and a generally 
quiet and sober conversation distinguished the follow- 
ers of Christ from the rest of the world. To become 
a Christian meant the giving up of all delight in earthly 
things, the sacrifice of tastes and practices of long culti- 
vation, and the adoption of obedience, service and purity. 
This singularity of life — the positive refusal to have 
part or lot in their pagan neighbors' social or religious 
life^— provoked bitter hostility, and at times violent per- 
secution. That did not, however, diminish the zeal or 
daunt the courage of the Christians : they rejoiced in 
tribulation and gloried in martyrdom. 

But such discipline was possible only when the Church 
was small in numbers and uniform in mind. Already 
has it been shown that its adherents were largely from 
the lower and lower-middle classes — people, as a rule, 
remarkable neither for great intellectual gifts nor for 
elevated moral principles. Rather than the nobler 
grades of society taking the cross, it was the refuse, 
the waste residuum, the discontented, miserable mass 
underlying the splendid economic structure of the age. 
They who loved the mirthful lines of Aristophanes, the 
delicious sensuousness of Sappho, the entrancing crea- 
tions of ^Eschylus and Sophocles or the speculations 
of Aristotle and Plato could not readily give up the 
life evolved and fostered by such poetry and philos- 
ophy, and for the culture and wisdom of ages accept a 
system which was great only in potentialities and dar- 
ing pretensions. The rich and the learned looked with 
contempt upon a society which, while consisting of 
ignorant and low-bred men, boldly denounced as con- 
trary to truth time-honored institutions. Even cut flow- 



82 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

ers might neither be woven in the wreath of the bride nor 
be plaited in the chaplet of the hero, much less used in 
worship. Nature herself was likewise set aside. What 
were towering mountains, foam-fringed seas, green for- 
ests, skies thick-set with stars or bright with wondrous 
hues and tints, waters babbling down the craggy glen 
or flowing between the banks of tender reeds, gardens 
gay with flowers and refreshed with fountains, singing- 
birds, whispering winds, and all the multitudinous and 
multiform delights which the Lord of all has given to 
his creation, — what were these to the man who saw 
nothing but a world ruined by sin and a race passing 
swiftly to destruction? The singers of Israel — David, 
Isaiah, the writer of the book of Job, and the Lord 
Jesus himself — failed not to read lessons in, and to draw 
illustrations from, the glories of heaven and earth ; but 
with the Gospels the poetry of the Scripture ends, and 
there are only one or two faint attempts to recall the 
spirit which stayed to look at the lilies of the field or 
the stars of heaven, and to see in them the evidences of 
a Father's love and the assurances of a Father's power. 
Such a neglect of Nature could not be pleasing to the 
bright-minded pagan. Christianity was to him sour and 
heavy. To offer it to him in place of what he had was 
like giving one of strong imaginative powers Owen's 
Exposition of the Hebrews instead of Midsummer Nighfs 
Dream. Hence in the palaces of the mighty it was 
ignored as one of a thousand fantasies, or, if noticed, 
its customs and claims served only to sharpen the wit 
and provoke the ridicule of the wearers of purple and 
fine linen. 

But as the years went on the mysterious and super 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 83 

natural might of the new religion became manifest. If 
it began with the outcasts of the people, with the men 
who were strangers to the courts of the wealthy, it ended 
in bettering them both mentally and socially; it gave 
them hopes and delights of more staying-power than 
the priests of the most humane pagan cult had ever 
imagined ; and it showed that he who looked with faith 
upon the cross was by it drawn up into the realms of 
purity, truth, endurance and love far higher than they 
could possibly attain who stood upon the loftiest peaks 
of heathenism. The more Christianity was studied, the 
more wonderful it appeared. All that was true and 
lovely in the religions of Greece, of Asia and of Egypt 
was in it, only more beautiful because separated from 
the accretions of dark eras, and more life-giving because 
regenerate and sanctified. The joy of the cross shone 
out as a brilliant light, and people who once had laughed 
now desired the grace which enabled men to bear suffer- 
ing without murmuring, and even to praise God when 
face to face with the lions of the amphitheatre or endur- 
ing the torture of the fire. So, little by little, the relig- 
ion of the Nazarene became popular. Rich and poor 
alike embraced its principles and adopted its life. The 
little company grew into a great multitude. Through- 
out the empire, in remote country places as well as in 
busy cities, it had its clergy and congregations. It was 
as the upbursting of the Orient light ; the faint unno- 
ticed tinge upon the gloom suddenly gave way to the 
brilliant dawn, and the signs were that ere long the 
kingdoms of the earth would become the kingdoms 
of the Lord and of his Christ. 

But increased numbers had a twofold effect upon the 



84 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Church : they widened her power, they weakened her 
piety. All who came within her borders were not so in 
earnest as to surrender literally according to their profes- 
sions ; they clung to much that was dear in the old pagan 
life. Hence the discipline became lax and the secular- 
ism great. In a little while the Church was divided into 
its two great classes — those who clung to the old ascetic 
idea, and those who would blend in a comfortable, if not 
harmonious, whole both godliness and worldliness, the 
service of God and the gratification of self. Naturally, 
under such circumstances, asceticism became even more 
pronounced and aggressive. It made desperate efforts 
then, as it has done in later ages, to correct the growing 
evil in the Church, but with small and varying success. 
Then the tendency to separation appeared. The holy 
life no longer was possible among men. There could 
be no sympathy of thought or feeling between people 
who abhorred and people who loved the same thing. 
The difficulty of living the ascetic life in the world 
was further increased by adverse social circumstances. 
With Christianity the sword entered into the family, not 
only giving occasion to bitter feelings, but also destroy- 
ing affection and gendering persecution. At home, in 
business and in society there was for the disciple of 
Christ a sharp and positive ostracism — a contempt that 
could scarcely find expression in either word or acts, a 
cutting off from all friendly intercourse as decided as it 
was constant and as humiliating as it was unjust. The 
price paid for professing the new religion was not always 
the pouring out of the blood in martyrdoms which from 
their publicity and prominence have become historical — 
that, though bad, had about it a certain glory which 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 85 

when life was hopeless must needs have been gratifying 
even to the most humble-minded and most self-forgetful 
— but there were the daily persecution, the thrusting 
out of employment and the loss of business, the petty 
annoyances and the cruel sneers, in many instances 
starvation none the less sure because gradual, and the 
encroachment upon personal rights none the less effect- 
ual because accomplished under some subtilty or fic- 
tion. To the poor man this meant, verily, a daily death. 
Perchance the wife remained pagan ; and when, because 
of religion, want and distress entered the family, her 
reproaches and the cries of suffering children must 
have been a sore trial and sad temptation. After all, 
the severest test that can come to the child of God is 
not from the enmity of the world, but from the love of 
those near and dear to him. The voice or the look of 
woe from such, the face pale from want and pleading, by 
its lines of agony must needs shake to the very founda- 
tion the soul's faith and confidence. One would rather 
stand bound before the leaping flames of the fire than 
hear such reproaches or see such anguish. Alas ! it 
was not peace, but fiercest, keenest, heaviest tribulation. 
Indeed, was it always purity ? Was not the tendency 
mighty — did it not appear even justifiable — to dissem- 
ble and to conceal the truth ? For the sake of the hun- 
ger and the nakedness at home might not a man cling 
to the Christ in his heart and deny him with the lips ? 
Could it be wrong to conform outwardly to the popular 
customs and opinions ? To do this in very many in- 
stances meant bread to eat and raiment to put on, but 
to do it was contrary to the first principles of Christian 
asceticism. That ideal knew no compromise — nothing 



86 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

but unfaltering obedience and unwavering profession. 
Christ was more than the food that perishes ; nay, if a 
man loved father or mother, wife or children, more than 
him, he was not worthy to bear his name. Better sepa- 
ration, shame, reproach or death than to go back to the 
worship of the vain gods and to the practice of unholy 
rites. 

Perhaps good-natured friends would for a time attempt 
to bring back the Christian to what they would call a 
right state of mind. They would present the most at- 
tractive side of the old religion — its history and poetry, 
its delightful associations and soul- moving ceremonies — 
and they would heap scorn and ridicule upon the faith 
of the cross, laughing at its pretensions, suggesting foul 
and impious things concerning its mysteries, arguing 
against its precepts and promises, and making merry 
upon the class, habits and pursuits of its adherents. 
The sneer and the jest would be mighty — mightier far 
than even the persuasive entreaty. Upon the poor be- 
wildered soul would fall the soft cobwebs of beguiling 
kindness, light as the threads of Indian silk and lovely 
as the mingled tints of saffron and rose, but, unless 
broken by the breathings and dissolved by the dews of 
grace, destined to become hard as steel and enduring as 
adamant. How could the ascetic reach the aim of his 
life except by coming out from amongst such destroy- 
ers of his purity ? True, these friends spoke kindly and 
meant well, their words were gentle as the Egyptian 
melodies sung by the girls of the theatre; but as in 
the one case the strains of music by their sweet abandon 
enticed to sin unspeakable, so in the other the persua- 
sions of well-wishers from their very earnestness and 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 8? 

sincerity led to spiritual infamy, and possibly to eternal 
death. The wider a man's acquaintance and the greater 
his worth, so much the more difficult his position, so 
much the harder his trial. 

Nor could the man who was both poor and pious 
always find the opportunity for religious and virtuous 
exercises. In the homes of the lower classes in the 
Orient there is not even now, much less was there in 
the days of old, that privacy and seclusion which we 
deem indispensable not only for prayer and meditation, 
but also for existence itself. We could scarcely live 
with the eye of another upon us every moment; that 
would be irksome, irritating, unbearable. We must shut 
out the world once in a while, absolutely, completely, 
surely. But life in a one-roomed hut or cottage does 
not favor such emotions. The laborer in the lands be- 
side the Nile or amid the valleys and plains of the Lesser 
Asia might not, indeed, feel the loss of what he had 
never possessed nor aspire to that of which he had never 
heard ; but if the spirit of asceticism once entered into 
his being, the need of quiet would soon present itself. 
He could not bow down to the earth before the God 
whom, not having seen, he loved, when wife and chil- 
dren, friends and acquaintances, stood by to interrupt 
with their untimely mirth and irreverent jesting. He 
could not lift up his soul to higher things in calm and 
lofty contemplation when everything around him was 
contrary both in intention and in appearance to such an 
act. There was for him nothing but the going away to 
the desert, the woods or the mountains — anywhere, so 
that he might be away from the madding crowd, alone 
with God. 



88 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

In higher life there were other and really severer 
social difficulties ; these became stronger as the Church 
became rilled with its multitude of fashionable and un- 
believing professors. The age was one of unbounded 
luxury and unrestrained vice; as Tertullian put it, 
" Satan and his angels have filled the whole world." 
One may not soil paper with the story of the atrocious 
and vile doings at the circus, the theatre and the race- 
course — the places of lewd gestures and licentious speech 
of which Christian teachers warned their hearers and to 
which heathen poets enticed them. The bloody trag- 
edies and the wanton comedies were as socially popular 
as they were morally dangerous. To the playhouse 
Ovid sends his disciple ; there he will find the pleasure 
he seeks and the debauchery he desires. Ready paths 
indeed were they to pollution and unending death, yet 
ladies waved their delicate hands to the charioteers and 
gladiators, beheld scenes of coarse brutality and acts of 
unquestionable immorality, and listened to the amatory 
stories of men who bound their curiously-cut locks with 
fillets of gold, chewed mastich and made their whole 
bod)/ smooth by having the hair taken out by pitch- 
plasters. In the home of the rich the incentives to vice 
were unrestricted ; had it not been so, neither the drama 
nor the mystery would have done its foul work or have 
been possible. Both music and books were of a part 
with the stories of the gods and the rites of the temple. 
Young people read the lives of Aphrodite and Demeter, 
the legends of Zeus and Dionysus, and in the romance 
saw not the sin and in the fresh verdure of the poetry 
of nature beheld not the lurking serpent of death. The 
walls of the houses, the ornaments in court and garden, 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 89 

the lamps and vessels of the table, the furniture of the 
bed and the toilet, chairs, vases, writing-tablets, and 
most things movable and all things immovable, were 
more or less set off with pictures, images or designs of 
unequivocal meaning. Ladies decorated their slippers 
with golden ornaments and erotic figures. Probably 
they neither caused a blush nor created an emotion ex- 
cept to that which we have been taught is sin, but which 
the people of old regarded as natural. Nor may we 
doubt that when an emperor painted his bedchamber 
and closet with the abominations of Elephantis his ex- 
ample was followed by the wealthy and great in every 
part of his dominion. What could be the result of such 
an abandon ? " The polluted things pollute us !" cries 
Tertullian. Marriage was thought lightly of; nay, 
women came to long for divorce as its natural conse- 
quence. They loved to frequent the streets and public 
places in lewd-colored and diaphanous garments, and 
did not feel ashamed to expose themselves in such ways 
as to justify the conclusion that their modesty had been 
washed away in the bath. In such a society — common 
throughout the lands in which Christianity won its early 
victories — how could the Christian escape contamina- 
tion ? The soot of iniquity must have fallen upon him 
and discolored his life. The bestiality was frightful, 
terrible even as the deadly pestilence. And this, by 
the way, was the outcome of that paganism which, 
though so luxuriant in imagination and so beautiful 
in form, had not enough vitality to save its votaries 
from unmitigated evil nor its own heart from unutterable 
corruption. What wonder Christians of intense convic- 
tions shunned such a system and avoided the haunts of 



90 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

its expression ? " Seated where there is nothing of God, 
will one be thinking of his Maker ?" 

With this almost unrelieved wickedness was associ- 
ated an extravagance of living not exceeded by that of 
the present age. In cities such as Rome and Alexan- 
dria there were a waste and a display of wealth far greater 
than we who have learned to worship our own century 
and our own civilization commonly suppose. Splendid 
houses elegantly and sumptuously adorned and fur- 
nished, equipages as complete as those which roll along 
the Route-en-Roi at London, retinues of servants and 
slaves, gardens in which were curious grottoes and ar- 
bors, fountains and streams of waters, flowers and shrubs 
from many lands, intricate mazes and shaded walks, and 
an ostentatious rivalry, — betokened the extensiveness of 
commerce, the perfection of art and the abundance of 
riches. The tables were supplied with delicacies costly 
and rare. To Alexandria at a great expense were 
brought lampreys from the straits of Sicily and eels 
from Meander, cockles of Pelorus and oysters of Aby- 
dos, kids from Melos and turbots from Attica, peafowl 
of Media and thrushes of Daphnis. In short, the rich 
seemed " to sweep the world with a drag-net to gratify 
their luxurious tastes." The indulgence in such epicu- 
rean pleasures was excessive ; the use of wines, beyond 
discretion. Banquets at which dances were performed 
and songs sung of a lascivious and mischievous kind 
were general. Nor was personal adornment neglected : 
cosmetics, hair-dyes and ointments were freely used. 
Women stained their eyebrows — if yellow, with soot; 
if black, with ceruse. They wore necklaces, earrings, 
anklets and fillets in which were set pearls and ame- 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 9 1 

thysts, jaspers, topazes and emeralds. Gold ornaments 
abounded ; artificial hair and wreathed curls, rouge and 
white lead, essences and perfumes, pumice to smooth the 
body and pitch to free it from capillae, were brought 
into requisition. Short people wore cork under their 
shoes, and tall people used thin soles. Dresses of cost- 
ly material and gorgeous colors set off the persons of 
the women — silks from India radiant in many hues, 
replete with endless embroidery and finish. Sometimes 
no less than ten thousand talents was given for a dress. 
There appeared, indeed, to be no limit to the extrava- 
gance. " Luxury," says Clement of Alexandria, " has 
outstripped nomenclature." He beseeches Christian 
ladies to abstain from such evil decking of the body 
of sin and death. " Since sheep have been created for 
us, let us not be as silly as sheep." The vain behavior 
and the light conversation of the victims of such reck- 
less usages indicated a moral depravity all the more 
terrible because associated with exquisite grace and 
beauty, and all the more deadly because fashionable and 
popular. The gay young ladies who wore plumes from 
the cranes of Thrace, wasted their time and money on 
parrots and curlews, and laughed or carried a slender 
sprig of myrtle between their lips to show their even 
white teeth, were matched with idle fops and frivolous 
dandies of the other sex. Everywhere there was a lack 
of that seriousness without which society must sooner 
or later come to ruin. " Man is not to laugh on all oc- 
casions because he is a laughing animal, any more than 
the horse neighs on all occasions because he is a neigh- 
ing animal." Time passed on, and the glory was taken 
away. The freighted ships no more brought their treas- 



92 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

ures to Italy, nor the caravans of the East their riches 
to Egypt; purple-clad princes no longer reigned on the 
Tiber or the Nile ; the streets of Alexandria, Rome, 
Ephesus and Antioch became silent in distress and 
shame, and where once light-hearted serenader sang his 
love-melody and softly-robed sylph listened to vows in- 
constant as the moon were heard the howling of the dog 
and the cry of the night-bird. Vanity of vanities, the 
blotting out, the woe, the death ! 

And this was the end which the ascetic saw. What 
was all this display of wealth, this revelry of licentious- 
ness, in contrast with life ? In the song of the siren he 
heard the shriek of the lost. Before the world lay end- 
less woe — the darkness of Pyriphlegethon and the mis- 
ery of Tartarus. The pleasure, gayety, luxury, thought- 
lessness, were injurious even to him. He could not live 
in the stifling atmosphere. He could not sleep on sil- 
ver-footed couches when his Lord and Master had not 
where to lay his head. Not that every pagan house was 
thus dissolute : there were exceptions, but the exceptions 
were rare. Purity was next to impossible ; assimilation 
with deity, beyond reach. Therefore the desert, away 
from it all, the unbroken solitude and the banishment of 
the world. It was no trial to give up that life — none 
whatever. Why should the child of God care to place 
a chaplet of flowers or a twisted band of laurel or myr- 
tle on the brow which was destined for a diadem? 
Why should he love the palaces of cedar and the 
bowers of indolence when he was heir of an abiding- 
place in the many mansions of the heavenly King? 

Persecution was another incentive to monachism. 
It is, indeed, admitted that the offensive character of 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 93 

Christianity — its claim to be alone the true religion and 
its endeavor to destroy all systems that differed from it — 
occasioned much of the fierce opposition which afflicted 
it for the first three centuries. But this was not the only 
nor the earliest cause of persecution. Nero caused the 
blood of the Christians to flow that he might avert from 
himself to them the charge of having set fire to Rome ; 
Domitian in his cruel and jealous rage imitated him out 
of fear lest the Christian might in the person of one of 
royal lineage bring forward a rival for the imperial throne. 
Not till the time of Trajan — about the beginning of the 
second century — when the refusal of the Christians to 
unite either in the worship of the gods or in the adora- 
tion of the emperor became widespread and pronounced, 
was the attention of the government aroused. Mild and 
considerate counsels for a season prevailed, but under 
Hadrian for the first time Christianity was expressly 
condemned. Then the governors of the province sought 
the emperor's favor or the applause of the populace by 
vigorously enforcing the edicts of repression. The lull 
in the storm during the reign of the gentle and kindly 
Antoninus Pius, who by founding schools of philosophy 
in the principal cities sought to convince by argument 
of intellect, was followed by the stern severity of Mar- 
cus Aurelius. By this time the pagan priesthood was 
thoroughly aroused. The " pestilent superstition," as 
Tacitus calls it, was able to make itself felt in every 
part of the world-wide realm. The temple- revenues 
began to fall off seriously, and, in spite of the attacks 
of Lucian and Celsus, Christian teachers proclaimed the 
truth and multiplied adherents. Nor was the state un- 
touched. There was no disguising the claims of Christ 



94 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

to universal dominion. If Rome set up itself as eternal, 
the Nazarenes dauntlessly declared of their Lord, " His 
kingdom is an everlasting kingdom-, and his dominion 
endureth throughout all generations." The antithesis 
of Christ and Caesar was constantly made. In its ter- 
ritorial lines the Church adopted the divisions of the 
Empire, and beside the governor placed the bishop, 
whose voice was unto it as the voice of God, and 
whom alone it considered itself bound to obey. This 
very act of appointing the bishop was dangerous to the 
imperial interests, for he obtained office only by the suf- 
frages of his peers ; and the people were thus constantly 
reminded of the republic. A pure democracy was one 
of the cardinal principles of the faith ; so the wisest 
statesmen and the best emperors set themselves against 
Christianity. They supposed that the secret assemblies 
of the Christians had a political meaning, and they ac- 
cepted the fact that the new religion was inimical to the 
interests of the realm. Multitudes followed their lead. 
The pure and earnest life of the Christian was in itself 
a constant rebuke ; that life made even the soldier bet- 
ter and braver than his pagan comrades. Sober and 
undefined, he had a clearer brain, a stronger muscle and 
a truer heart. Every misfortune which came upon the 
Empire — and they were so many that the year 166 was 
called annus calamitosus — was laid to the charge of the 
Christians. They were false to the gods, and the gods 
had taken away the success and the glory which in the 
past had attended the arms and the enterprises of Rome. 
Charges of the wildest and most impossible nature were 
made. Refusing to go to the temples and having no 
public places of worship, the Christians were declared 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 95 

atheists. Their socialism appeared to be a cloak for 
licentious and incestuous living, and their manner of 
speaking of the great sacrament laid them open to the 
supposition of cannibalism. They were even said to 
worship an ass. Such ridiculous ideas prevailed largely 
and were made the expression of the deeper and more 
philosophical spirit — the popular excuse for extreme and 
severe measures. 

Bitter and violent was the tribulation. The fires which 
Nero kindled in his garden had their counterpart to the 
remotest bounds of the Empire. Idle ladies and disso- 
lute lords, a vile and blood-loving populace, saw defence- 
less men, women and children thrown to the lions, tor- 
tured, picked to pieces, crushed, burnt. The attraction 
of the circus or of the amphitheatre was a martyrdom. 
Only have a Christian to put to death, and a multitude 
would assemble to gloat over his sufferings. Red-hot 
plates of metal were applied to the quivering body of 
maid or matron, of child or old man ; some were made 
to struggle with wild bulls or still more furious gladia- 
tors; and both by refinement of cruelty and by brutal 
force they were harried and hurled out of life. Can the 
frightful page be blotted out of the history of man ? 
Yet these enormities were wrought by the disciples of 
that wonderful paganism which demands our homage, 
and for the most part were done during the reigns of the 
noblest princes which that paganism produced ! There 
was no mitigation. Melito, bishop of Sardis, told Aure- 
lius to his face, " Shameless informers, greedy of others' 
possessions, taking occasion of these edicts, plunder their 
innocent victims day and night." Husbands made Chris- 
tianity an excuse for putting away their wives ; fathers, 



g6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

for disinheriting their sons ; masters, for punishing their 
servants. Still, it was in vain : the Christ was lifted up, 
and he drew all men. Nobly and exultantly writes Ter- 
tullian, " Your cruelty is the trial of our conscience ; 
God permits us to suffer these things in order that it 
may be seen by all that we prefer to suffer death rather 
than commit sin. Your cruelty, even the most exqui- 
site, is of no avail against us. It is rather that which is 
our lure : it draws converts to us. We grow by being 
mown down. The blood of Christians is the seed of 
the Church." 

It is not to be denied that many who professed and 
called themselves Christians when the fires were lighted 
and the lions loosed denied the faith and went back. 
The lapsi and the traditores became a cause of much per- 
plexity to the Church. But, this notwithstanding, the 
army of martyrs is beyond numbering. Whether in the 
furious persecution which broke out in Gaul or in the 
beginning of the third century in Africa and Egypt — no 
matter where — there was no lack of ready confessors. 
People began, indeed, to covet and to seek the baptism 
of blood. They gloried in suffering and delighted in 
being thought worthy of death. Perhaps the pleasure 
became morbid. Old men longed to die as Polycarp 
and Hippolytus had died ; young women, to walk in 
the steps of Perpetua and Felicitas. The Church was 
obliged to denounce the unhealthy tendency, and to 
show that oftentimes it was better for one to flee than to 
stay — that the white martyrdom, the daily dying unto 
sin, was better than the red martyrdom, the death in the 
fire. Clemens Alexandrinus even in his day was decided 
on this point. The Lord, says he, " bids us take care 



THE SOLITAR Y LIFE. gy 

of ourselves, and he who disobeys is foolhardy. He who 
does not avoid persecution, but rashly offers himself for 
capture, becomes an accomplice in the crime of the per- 
secutor; and if he provokes and challenges the wild 
beast, he is certainly guilty." 

This pagan opposition to Christianity could not have 
been other than a direct cause of monachism. Driven 
away from home, forced out of employment, defrauded 
of possessions and reputation, in danger of prison, tor- 
ment and death, it was natural that men should seek 
seclusion and safety in the wilderness. Even the em- 
peror could not rule in the boundless desert; his com- 
mands there were forceless, and his edicts as short-lived 
as the tracks in the sand. The recluse could banish him 
and his splendor from his mind, and disregard alike the 
cruelty of the soldier and the sophistry of the sage. In 
due time his flight received the approval of the Church, 
and his self-denial the admiration of the people. 

Powerful as was this influence, mightier than it and 
second to none that have been mentioned was the doc- 
trine of virginity or celibacy. This doctrine receives 
emphasis because in the early centuries of the faith it 
is exalted above even asceticism. It rested upon and 
received its strength from many considerations. The 
perilous position of the early Christians made the single 
life prudent : there were in it neither the danger of 
heathen alliances or of family divisions, nor the cares, 
anxieties and griefs incident to marriage. It saved men 
from the engrossing pursuits of business, the desire and 
need of amassing riches, the disgrace which might arise 
from the wrong-doing of children and the temptations 
to luxury, worldliness and covetousness. They who 



98 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

were married were tied to places and governed by the 
will of others. They could not give undivided attention 
to the affairs of religion, nor could they have either un- 
disturbed leisure for prayer or freedom from that incisive 
criticism which is keenest in the unreserved home-life. 
Moreover, the day was near at hand when the present 
state of things should end. In view of coming calam- 
ities and of approaching judgment, it was no time to 
marry or to be given in marriage. No one would sug- 
gest the epithalamium to a dying man, and the Chris- 
tians of that day lived as in the shadow of death. Nor 
in heaven was t^ere aught but virginity, and they would 
be as were the angels of God ; nay, they would follow 
the example of the Blessed Virgin and of the Lord Jesus 
in their perpetual chastity. They even looked upon 
marriage as a consequence of the Fall and the brand of 
human imperfection : had Adam not sinned, he would 
have remained for ever in a state of virgin purity. Long 
before their day by many celibacy was regarded as the 
purer and holier state of life and the best preparation 
for paradise, and though ancient nations, having a view 
solely to the present world, repeatedly legislated against 
it, there was never a time when some did not conscien- 
tiously remain single. There were passages in the New 
Testament which appeared to favor their view, and possibly 
the spirit of antagonism led them to differ from the Jews, 
who insisted upon a married priesthood, declared that no 
man should exceed twenty without marrying and made 
marriage the first of the six hundred and thirteen precepts. 
In their seriousness the frivolity and the absorption con- 
nected with wooing, the emotions and visions which it 
occasioned, seemed dangerous and undesirable. It was 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. 99 

not, indeed, proposed before the Council of Carthage in 
251 that celibacy should apply -to the clergy, nor was it 
till the pontificate of Gregory VII. (1074) that it was en- 
forced among them ; but the superiority of the virgin 
life appeared so manifest that the highest type of spirit- 
uality, whether in clergy or laity, was without it con- 
sidered unattainable. 

And yet there were two other considerations which 
probably outweighed all these and made virginity more 
than ever important. One of these was the doctrine of 
the evil of matter, upon which we have already touched ; 
the other was the reaction from the fundamental pagan 
principle of the deification of sex. Of the impurities 
of that worship which was associated with this latter 
feature of heathendom it is not prudent to speak. All 
the ancient religions personified in their gods and god- 
desses the male and female principles of nature. They 
prescribed duties to be performed to them, recounted 
their deeds, revealed their mysteries and constantly by 
symbol, lesson or myth kept the mind upon such things 
as could only result in the outbreak of awful orgies of 
vice and in a depraved mode of living. The disgusting 
and sickening emblems of this sex-cult were every- 
where — engraven on walls, carved in wood and stone 
and painted in pictures. Astarte in one land and 
Aphrodite in another, Osiris and Isis, Anu and Anatu, 
Bel and Mylitta, Jupiter and Juno, and hosts of deities 
like unto them, had their temples, servitors, devotees 
and all the accessories of worship. The life was not 
merely sensuous : it was sensual. Of chastity there was 
none ; it was both impossible and unknown. The mind 
was debased and the soul was hardened and stained, 



IOO READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

even as marble upon which black dye has been suffered 
to remain. Apologists such as Voltaire and Constant 
notwithstanding, the slime-track is over all the splendor 
of heathen art and poetry, here deepening and broaden- 
ing in the lines of an Ovid and there glistening with the 
odes of an Anacreon. In short, the very essence and 
glory of pagan life and literature is sexual — the mag- 
nificence of beauty cast upon the lowest animal pro- 
pensities. 

The reaction from this in the Christian life can well 
be imagined. That would naturally go to the other 
extreme, and in its desire to overthrow impurity would 
exalt abstinence. The feeling would be made more in- 
tense when heretics such as Cerinthus went back to the 
old licentiousness, and when, in later times, Mohammed 
peopled his paradise with black-eyed houris and prom- 
ised the Faithful a plurality of wives. As the pagans 
taught that the sacrifice of virginity was a necessary 
and a high virtue, the Christians held the opposite. 
They broke out into extravagant laudations of the sin- 
gle life. Ignatius called virgins " the jewels of Christ," 
and Hieracas made " virginity a condition of salvation." 
Bodily suffering and bodily purity were almost equally 
commended. " The first reward," says St. Cyprian to 
the virgins, " is for the martyrs an hundred-fold ; the 
second, sixty-fold, is for yourselves." Athenagoras dis- 
tinctly connected virginity with the privilege of divine 
communion. " You will find many of our people," he 
says to the emperor Marcus, "both men and women, 
grown old in their single state, in hope thereby of a 
closer union with God." Such expressions abound and 
testify how thoroughly the tendency had fastened itself 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. IOI 

upon early Christianity. This spirit we can better de- 
scribe than understand ; to us it is as repulsive as its op- 
posite, and in its ultimate results is no less damaging 
and evil. But it was the very thing to further mona- 
chism. It was pre-eminently conducive to the solitary 
life ; and as in Egypt the highest mysticism prevailed, 
so there also did this spirit exist in fullest measure. 

To one other cause only shall we refer. Very early 
in the Church arose the doctrine of works. There were 
two classes of Christians to whom the precepts of Scrip- 
ture were addressed — those who would be perfect, and 
those who would merely be saved. For the former 
were " the counsels of perfection," whereby they might 
voluntarily attain to special sanctity, and for the latter 
were the general commands which were absolutely nec- 
essary to all without exception. Works of supereroga- 
tion were therefore possible, and by these works not 
only might the punishment due to committed sin be re- 
moved, but also a surplus of virtue might be applied to 
balance the shortcomings of others. Penance followed 
every violation of the moral law, but in this way pen- 
ance might be anticipated, and even the sufferings of the 
future world worked off in advance. Thus early the 
all-cleansing efficacy of the Redeemer's blood was for- 
gotten, and men imagined that by deeds of the law they 
could both save themselves and help others heavenward. 
The pure-minded and unselfish man had thus a con- 
straining motive to enter into the life of seclusion. 
There he could approach nearer his Creator and offer 
his prayers and virtues, in a sense, as a propitiatory 
sacrifice for those loved ones who were yet in the world. 
Perhaps the best way to help them was to separate from 



102 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

them, and thus by entering into the inner and higher 
holiness of saints and angels obtain access to the throne 
of Deity and there plead that they might find grace and 
mercy in the day of necessity. 

Upon the motives which have been described we 
reserve judgment. Wherein they were right or where- 
in they were wrong need not now be decided; that 
they existed is a fact sufficient. On the whole, we 
perforce admit the sincerity of those whom they influ- 
enced. The early professors of the faith in their zeal 
stopped at no sacrifice. To reach God was all they 
sought ; to do his will, their only desire. Monachism 
appeared to them the best and readiest way, and one 
thing after another evolved and supported that idea. 
The working out of the system necessarily had its 
mingled triumphs and failures, its lights and shadows, 
its glory and its shame. Only let this be kept in mind, 
that the quest of many in those early days was as 
Quarles describes the soul's search for Christ now — 
as bewildering and as successful : 

"I search'd this glorious city: he's not here; 

I sought the country : she stands empty-handed ; 
I search'd the court: he is a stranger there; 

I asked the land : he's ship'd ; the sea : he's landed ; 
I climbed the air: my thoughts began t' aspire; 
But, ah ! the wings of my too bold desire, 
Soaring too near the sun, were singed with sacred fire. 

" I moved the merchant's ear : alas ! but he 

Knew neither what I said, nor what to say ; 
I ask'd the lawyer : he demands a fee, 

And then demurs me with a vain delay; 
I ask'd the schoolman: his advice was free, 

But scor'd me out too intricate a way; 



THE SOLITARY LIFE. IO3 

I ask'd the watchman (best of all the four), 
Whose gentle answer could resolve no more 
But that he lately left him at the temple door. 

1 Thus having sought and made my great inquest 

In every place and search' d in every ear, 
I threw me on my bed ; but, ah ! my rest 

Was poisoned with the extremes of grief and fear, 
When, looking down into my troubling breast — 

The magazine of wounds — I found him there !" 



CHAPTER IV. 

(Brototlj of Jftanarijtem. 

The earliest disciples of monachism were satisfied 
with a temporary seclusion. After a time — lengthened 
or shortened according to circumstances — they returned 
from their retreat to their families and ordinary voca- 
tions. They thus complied with the command once 
given to the apostles : " Come ye yourself apart into a 
desert place, and rest a while." 

Nor is it certain that the societies of female ascetics 
which early formed within the congregation for many 
years either assumed an organization separate from that 
of the common body of the faithful or observed more 
than the same transitory retirement. Their primary pur- 
pose was rather to work in the world than to go out of 
the world — to minister to the sick and needy and to set 
an example of holy living whereby the Church might 
be edified. Therefore, though the members assumed 
the obligations of perpetual virginity, they lived among 
their friends and took their part in the usual household 
and social duties. Even when they entered into a com- 
mon life, the little community was for some time within 
the organization and under the jurisdiction of the parish. 
By the end of the third century they had obtained auton- 
omy, doubtless by a gradual and necessary evolution. 

This embryonic monachism speedily reached its next 

104 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 105 

stage in the anchorets or hermits — a stage accurately 
indicated by the etymology of these names. The first 
anchoret of whom history speaks is Paul of Alexandria. 
When the Decian persecution reached Egypt, about 251, 
he was twenty-three years of age. From that time till 
he attained fourscore and ten years he lived in the des- 
ert of the Thebaid, a palm tree beside his cavern for 
twenty years supplying him with leaves for clothing and 
fruit for food, and when that failed a raven bringing him 
meat daily for the remainder of his life. In his old age 
he was found out by Antony, who beheld with delight 
and humility his austerities, and when he died buried 
him in a cloak which once had belonged to St. Athana- 
sius. Nor were the winding-sheet of orthodoxy and 
the odorous spices of sanctity all : though unknown to 
the world, Paul had made friends with the brutes of 
the wilderness. The lions came expressing their sym- 
pathy to Antony by good-humoredly growling and 
wagging their tails, and setting forth their affection by 
scratching their old friend's grave in the sand. 

Marvellous and multitudinous are the legends which 
cluster around characters such as Paul, but from the 
plethora we may indulge our curiosity and adorn our 
story when we deal with greater and more glorious 
names. St. Jerome, who alone records the life of this 
early anchoret, imperils his testimony by an extravagant 
indulgence of the powers of imagination and invention. 
He treasured the fragments of gossip with a care and 
an affection as great as those which Antony bestowed 
upon the garment of stitched palm-leaves which had for 
long covered the withered body of Paul. The relics 
were in both cases of equal worthlessness. 



106 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

This Antony, the son of wealthy and honorable par- 
ents, was born at the village of Coma, near to Heraclea, 
on the borders of the Thebaid, in the year in which 
Paul first sought the safety and solitude of the desert. 
His education was neglected — at least, his knowledge 
of Greek was very small — but he had a retentive mem- 
ory, a thoughtful mind and a great fondness for the 
sacred Scriptures. Believing that the word of God 
gave instruction enough for the needs of man, he cared 
for none but the inspired literature, and rather than with 
the romances of pagan poets diligently stored his mind 
with its sublime lessons. His parents died and left him 
considerable wealth about 270, when he was in his eigh- 
teenth year. Life soon began to take its destined course. 
The sincerity and simplicity of his apprehension of the 
truth, like flowers of rich and rare loveliness, early in 
his youth threw out their bloom and fragrance. One 
day in church he heard read the message of the gospel : 
" If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and 
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; 
and come, follow me." The entrance of the word gave 
light to the rich young man. He humbly applied it to 
himself, and determined to walk in the path of duty 
thus pointed out. Immediately, lest, perchance, time 
might weaken the resolution, his estate was sold and 
the proceeds were distributed to the poor, sufficient 
only being reserved for the support of his sister. Later, 
impressed in like manner with the words, " Take no 
thought for the morrow," he gave away the remnant, 
and placed his sister in a society of religious virgins. 
His ties with the world thus severed, he betook himself 
to a retreat not far from his native village to work out 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. \0J 

his own salvation by austerities as fatal to natural in- 
stincts as the drouth is to vegetation, and by prayers as 
long as the night. An angel taught him to weave mats 
and to perform other acts of manual labor. His soli- 
tary meal, never taken before sunset, consisted of bread 
and salt with water; the floor, bare or thinly strewn 
with rushes, was his couch. Later he hid himself for 
ten years in an old sepulchre, till, desiring even more 
impressive solitude and to be freed from unceasing con- 
flicts with the spirits of evil, in 285 he boldly ventured 
into the desert, and after three days' journey found in 
the Wady Arabah, near the Red Sea, a ruined tower 
where were both shade and water. Here he decided to 
remain for the rest of his days. A dreary spot — shade- 
less sands and treeless mountains ; a sky seldom soft- 
ened with a cloud or cheered with the song of bird or 
sweep of wind ; beyond the sunburnt cliffs the quiet, 
glittering sea-waters, and farther still the harsh and life- 
less peaks of Sinai. Tradition affirms that down this 
valley the chariots of Pharaoh pursued the children 
of Israel, and that Miriam bathed in the spring which 
bursts out from the rocks below the cave in which 
Antony lived. On the opposite side of the sea is a 
boiling sulphurous spring which started into being 
with the last drowning gasps of the Egyptian king's 
violent anger, and which his spirit still haunts. No 
Arab ventures to bathe in those waters — which are 
efficacious for the cure of rheumatism — without first 
casting in a cake of meal and oil specially prepared as 
an offering to the revengeful and active ghost of the 
Pharaoh. 

Antony was no sooner settled than his peace was dis- 



108 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

turbed by multitudes of tormenting demons and admir- 
ing Christians. His fame as a holy and devout man 
spread throughout Egypt and entered the realm of 
Hades. Which he dreaded the more is not told ; both 
were terrible enough. Juno was not more persistent or 
malignant in her persecution of ./Eneas than was Satan 
in his affliction of Antony. To the recluse came from 
the desert first the Arabs, wondering at his strange ap- 
pearance and habits ; and before long pilgrims of many 
lands thronged around him, that they might obtain con- 
solation for their sorrows and counsels for their difficul- 
ties. He was sympathetic and eloquent, able to minis- 
ter to the heavy-hearted and to instruct the ignorant. 
His knowledge of Scripture and of human nature was 
as great as was his zeal for orthodoxy. He hated here- 
tics as vigorously as the voyagers on his native Nile 
hated mosquitoes ; the night-winds which crept over 
the rocks and plains around were not more chilly to 
his body than was the breath of heresy to his soul. 
His renown spread far and wide, and his example be- 
came highly contagious. In a short while other souls 
like unto his made their homes in the caves of the hills 
near him. The silent valley was soon thick-set with 
cells. There was no organization binding the hermits 
in one society. That was a later stage ; so far, each in- 
dividual lived as much by himself as he lived for him- 
self. The neighborhood of Antony was sought that his 
disciples might profit by his lessons and imitate his 
practices. The only rule observed was for every one 
to become as much like him as possible. 

One of the usual effects of such a life came to the 
hermit of Mount Colzim : he fell a prey to that morbid 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. IO9 

and overwrought imagination in which he saw and 
fought with the unclean spirits of darkness. Virgil 
takes his hero over the lake of liquid pitch, through 
ghastly shades, into the nether realm, there to behold 
the horrors of furies, gorgons and centaurs, of hydra- 
headed serpents and maddened ghosts. Dante roamed 
through the same dreary regions, and told the story of 
woe in lines livid in painful reality and burnt with im- 
perishable fire in the rocks of genius. These were only 
dreams, but to Antony such things were no visions. 
His eyes were open as were Balaam's on the hills of 
Moab, and neither poetic ecstasy nor prophetic inspira- 
tion was needed to show him the things hid from most 
men. He had, indeed, no Beatrice in heaven and no 
Dido in the mournful fields of Hades — probably he had 
never loved to the weal or the woe of another — but the 
devil of Uncleanness was persistent in his attacks. Hav- 
ing little else, to do, Antony was busied in curbing lustful 
passions and in fighting down the impure images which 
constantly arose from the abyss of corruption within his 
heart. The more he battled, the stronger became the 
foe. No stagnant pool is purified by enclosing or cov- 
ering it ; and had the will been weaker, the animal 
nature must have risen above the spiritual and the 
anchoret have fallen into grievous sin. An active and 
a more natural life would have saved him days of fierce 
conflict and years of dire temptation. At times Satan 
came against him violently, bemuddling his mind, mak- 
ing unearthly noises and beating him till the pain of 
blows and wounds was unbearable. Subtilty was tried : 
fiends disguised themselves, and in pleasant forms and 
with enticing words sought to beguile him. That fail- 



110 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

ing, they mocked him in his prayers and hissed at him 
in his reading ; they appeared in hideous and enormous 
shape and as equipped and mounted soldiers; they 
spread gold and plate in his way to tempt him; and 
when device after device was proven fruitless, they de- 
parted gnashing their teeth. The cries of the hermit 
during these ghostly conflicts were loud and terrible. 
They who stood without the cell heard the tumult and 
the wailing, but none dared to enter in ; it was enough 
for them to know that the fiercest and mightiest of 
demons could not take the citadel of faith or overthrow 
the walls of grace. Satan trembled as the shouts echoed 
along the mountain-rocks ; admiring hermits and pil- 
grims rejoiced at the conflict and sang their alleluias at 
the triumph. Later in his experience Antony reached 
a healthier state of mind. " Let us not," he said to his 
disciples, " busy our imaginations in painting spectres of 
evil spirits ; let us not trouble our minds as if we were 
lost Let us rather be cheerful and comforted at all 
times, as those who have been redeemed, remembering 
that the Lord is with us who has overcome the spirits 
of evil and made them as nothing." 

The love of animals was natural to one who had to 
do more with the beasts of the wild than with the people 
of the world. Most of the hermits were renowned for 
this affection, and Antony was second to none. Tradi- 
tion relates that when his small patch of corn and vege- 
tables under the palm trees was damaged by animals of 
the desert coming for water he gently laid hold of one 
and said to him and his fellows, "Why do you injure 
me, when I do you no hurt ? Depart, and, in the name 
of the Lord, come hither no more." They took the 



GROWTH OF M0NACH1SM. 1 1 1 

gentle reproof in good spirit, and never came into his 
neighborhood again. Another tradition, displayed in a 
picture in the Borghese palace at Rome, represents him 
as preaching to the fishes. The salmon and the cod 
listen with humility and gaze upon him with upturned 
eyes ; and when the discourse is ended, they and their 
friends bow with reverence, and, having received a bless- 
ing, scud away to do their duty and to make converts 
in the depths of the main. As it is uncertain how An- 
tony could address fishes in a place fifteen miles from 
the sea, this episode has been ascribed sometimes to 
another Antony — him of Padua; but when one enters 
the realm of ecclesiastical miracles, it is as unnecessary 
to attempt explanation as it is foolish to stumble at ap- 
parent wonders. In Rome, on the day dedicated to the 
memory of the monk of the desert, January 17, horses, 
mules and dogs are sprinkled with consecrated water 
and solemnly blessed, and in the Middle Ages it was 
held that the pig was a special object of the saint's per- 
petual love and care. 

Antony seldom left his retirement or went beyond 
the lattrcs — the streets or cluster of hermitages which 
had gathered around his cave, and which mark another 
stage in the development of monachism. His influence 
grew with his years. The sick and the possessed were 
brought to him that he might pray over them and, 
should God will, impart to them the desired health. 
His belief in the efficacy of prayer was great. When 
answered he never boasted that his words had pre- 
vailed with God, and when refused he never murmured, 
but in either case gave thanks to the Lord who had 
power to give or to withhold. In 311, when the per- 



1 1 2 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

secution of Maximinus Daza affected Egypt and many 
confessors of the faith were condemned to death, he 
went to Alexandria and with words of cheerful faith 
strengthened the weak and wavering and brightened 
the last moments of the dying. He even refused to 
obey the governor's orders that all monks should leave 
the city. He who had fought with demons was not 
afraid of men, and so long as need required he ap- 
peared in public, boldly preaching the gospel of Christ, 
and none molested him or made him afraid. But such 
was not his natural element. He shrank from the gaze 
of the world and gladly returned to his loved home in 
the wilderness. "A monk out of his solitude," he said, 
" is like a fish out of water." Later, when Constantine 
and his sons wrote to him imploring his counsel and 
inviting him to court, he was neither flattered nor 
elated. To those around him he said, " Wonder not 
that the emperor writes to us, for he is a man; but 
rather wonder at this — that God hath written his laws 
for men, and hath spoken them to us by his Son." He 
declined the honor, but wrote to the emperor and his 
sons congratulating them upon being Christians, warn- 
ing them that earthly power and glory should pass 
away, and urging them to philanthropy, justice and the 
care of the poor. These virtues he constantly enjoined 
on all, adding to them unceasing prayer and abstinence. 
" The devil," he observed, " is afraid of fasting, of prayer, 
of humility and of good works." 

In the Arian controversy he was enthusiastically on 
the orthodox side, and by his vehemence and shrewd- 
ness saved many from danger and blunted the weapons 
of those who would turn his illiteracy or zeal into ridi- 



GR WTH OF MONA CHISM. 1 1 3 

cule. He wrote to Constantine urging him to recall the 
exiled Athanasius, and received an answer full of respect. 
But Arianism spread, and threatened to subvert the 
Church. Everywhere men disregarded the definitions 
and decrees of the Council of Nicaea. Not only was 
the court corrupt in the faith, but many sees were filled 
with bishops who openly avowed the heterodox view. 
So great was the peril that Antony at the age of five- 
score years resolved to lift up his voice in Alexandria 
on behalf of the wronged Athanasius and of the dishon- 
ored Lord of glory. His emaciated form, wrapped in 
a sheepskin garment, his warm eloquence and advanced 
age, made a startling impression in the great city. Men 
had long heard of him, and learned to think of him as 
of a second Tishbite ; now even pagans pressed to see 
the man of God and with the Christians to touch his 
garments that they might be healed. They beheld the 
weird processions of his followers moving through the 
streets, bearing aloft burning tapers and singing peni- 
tential psalms and everywhere urging the people to 
return and cling to the faith of the Crucified. He con- 
verted more in one day than the Church had done in a 
whole year. Nor did he depart from his native sim- 
plicity and meekness : he supported his fame with dis- 
cretion and dignity and rejoiced in his success with 
humility and gratitude. Not the least of his honors 
was the friendship which Athanasius freely bestowed 
upon him. 

It was, however, revealed to him that he was not per- 
fect. " Antony," said a voice from heaven to him one 
day, " thou art not so perfect as is a cobbler that dwell- 
eth at Alexandria;" whereupon he sought out the cob- 



114 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bier to find wherein the difference lay. The poor man 
was astonished to see so grave and venerable a Father, 
but he received him courteously. " Come and tell me," 
said Antony, " thy whole conversation and how thou 
spendest thy time." He replied, " Sir, as for me, good 
works have I none, for my life is but simple and slen- 
der ; I am but a poor cobbler. In the morning, when 
I rise, I pray for the whole city wherein I dwell, espe- 
cially for all such neighbors and poor friends as I have ; 
after, I set me at my labor, where I spend the whole day 
in getting my living ; and I keep me from all falsehood, 
for I hate nothing so much as I do deceitfulness ; where- 
fore, when I make to any man a promise, I keep it and 
perform it truly. And thus I spend my time poorly 
with my wife and children, whom I teach and instruct, 
as far as my wit will serve me, to fear and dread God. 
And this is the sum of my simple life." Bishop Lati- 
mer, upon whose authority this story is recorded, makes 
a profitable application of it ; if the tradition be true, it 
shows that the possibility had not already been forgotten 
of a holy life in the family and in the world. 

A. like vision told Antony that an anchoret more per- 
fect than himself had been living in the desert ever since 
he himself was born. He searched, and found out this 
greater man, who happened to be Paul of Thebes. At 
the door of his cell for some time he knocked in vain : 
the hermit admitted the wild beasts and repulsed human 
visitors. But the lesson of persistency had been well 
learned, and Antony continued knocking. Finally the 
bar was removed, the door was opened, and Paul received 
him with a smiling face and a ready welcome. That even- 
ing the raven brought a double portion of food, and 



GR WTH OF MONA CHISM. 1 1 5 

Antony was soon glad to recognize superior worth 
and nobler devotion. He found a master in Paul, and 
on his second visit it was his privilege not only to lay 
the aged hermit in his grave, but also to see his soul 
borne upward by angels to the choir of prophets and 
apostles. 

The time at last came when Antony himself should 
pass into the light of the Beatific Vision. His life's 
work had given to monachism its first mightiest im- 
pulse; thousands of anchorets were already scattered 
over the deserts of Egypt. Around his dying-bed 
assembled his immediate disciples. There was no fal- 
tering, no change in the nature of that life of a hundred 
and five years. With faith and resignation he said, " I 
enter, as it is written, the path of my fathers ; for I see 
that the Lord calls me." He feared lest the veneration 
of his countrymen should convert his remains into an 
object of idolatry, for the Egyptians still followed the 
ancient custom of embalming the bodies of revered 
friends. Of his two sheepskins, he bequeathed one to 
the bishop of Alexandria and the other to the bishop 
Thmuis. A cloak which had been worn for many years 
he directed to be given to Athanasius, its original pos- 
sessor, and his garment of haircloth fell to the portion 
of his two immediate attendants. All other treasure 
that he had was laid up in that heaven to which by the 
mercy of God he now wended his way. The place of 
his burial was kept secret : no man might know of it 
or disturb his long repose. 

It is unjust to question the true greatness of soul 
manifest in this father of monachism. The absolute 
sacrifice of self, the giving up of wealth, position, friends 



Il6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and the conveniences and pleasures of society, the con- 
flict with carnal and spiritual adversaries, and the long 
consistent life, betoken a heroism nobler and loftier than 
belongs to men of smaller mould. If his austerities led 
him to extraordinary and repulsive observances — for 
instance, except in wading through a river when on his 
journeys his body was untouched by water — they also 
led him to live out a constant protest against the sins, 
the vices and luxuries, of his age. His example taught 
men the worthlessness of earthly riches — nay, made 
them feel the folly of heaping up the stores of wealth 
and of broadening the hides of land. This world was 
not all : the unseen forces of the invisible realm were 
on every side struggling for the possession of the soul 
of man and seeking his eternal freedom or his everlast- 
ing bondage. Over the lips of Antony passed no word 
that could strengthen the power of darkness ; as in the 
faith, so in the life, he would be pure and undefiled. 
What wonder, then, that his name, great in his own 
day, revered in his own age, has received from time 
naught but mellowed reverence and quiet honor ? We 
may pass by the legends that after his death for three 
years the heavens refused to drop their dew or the 
clouds to give their rain, and that some two centuries 
later his body by divine revelation was discovered un- 
corrupted and then taken to Europe ; such stories testify, 
if not to their own truth, at least to the respect with 
which he was regarded. Nor is it necessary that we 
should seek to discern more in the virtues which peo- 
ple long supposed remained in his relics and pertained 
to his prayers ; had they not believed in the man, they 
would not have thought him able to cure the burning 



GR O WTH OF MONA CHISM. 1 1 J 

erysipelas. Athanasius wrote his life, and the story of 
the life moved the Church throughout the world ; and 
if the craftsmen of the needle made him their patron 
saint, some of the greatest painters of the world have 
thought him worthy of their canvas. 

Antony was not alone in his life's work. One of his 
disciples was Hilarion, born about 288, of heathen parents, 
at Tabatha, near to the ancient Philistian Gaza. When 
a boy at the schools in Alexandria, he became a Chris- 
tian. The new faith touched his ardent, earnest soul 
with sharp reality. No sooner had he heard of Antony 
than he set out to find him. He sat at the feet of the 
monk of the Thebain wilds, heard his words of wisdom, 
saw his acts of devotion and sacrifice, and before long 
was seized with the spirit of imitation. This seemed 
so true a model of the higher life, and Hilarion desired 
nothing else than to use it as a means of bringing him 
closer to God. On his return to Palestine, though but 
fifteen years old, he gave away the property inherited 
from his lately-deceased parents, and, owning nothing 
in this world but the rough garments in which he was 
clad, he sought a refuge in the dismal desert between 
the sea and the marshes on the borders of Egypt. 
There he remained for the greater part of his life, 
suffering the privations of an inhospitable wilderness, 
exposed to fierce winds and heavy rains, his wants but 
scantily supplied and his days spent in an austerity 
unnaturally extreme, and in some respects disgustingly 
severe. The results of patience, mortification and re- 
flection were apparent not only in the increase of faith 
and spiritual wisdom, but also in the widespread fame 
which attended them. More years brought to Hilarion 



Il8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

both experience and disciples. Multitudes thronged 
around him as multitudes also thronged around Antony. 
His counsel was precious ; his consolation, beyond price. 
Laura of hermitages were built near him, and event- 
ually some three or four thousand anchorets scattered 
throughout Syria acknowledged him as their master 
and recognized his spiritual oversight. It is supposed 
that the learned and mystical Ephraem visited him and 
became an eager disciple ; certainly, monachism received 
a ready welcome and obtained a rapid growth in Meso- 
potamia. 

When sixty-five years old, Hilarion received a revela- 
tion of the death of Antony, and he proceeded to visit 
the scenes of his old master's labors. That done, with 
his beloved disciple Hesychius, he crossed the seas and 
sought retirement in Sicily; but in vain. He went to 
Epidaurus ; finally, in Cyprus, he found a lonely cell 
amongst some almost inaccessible rocks, and there he 
remained till, in 371, he died. His life was written by 
Epiphanius and by Jerome, and, like that of Antony by 
Athanasius, did much to further the idea of monachism. 

Another imitator of Antony not only furthered the 
general spirit, but gave it its next development. At 
first monachism did not advance beyond the laurce, or 
clusters of separate cells around some famous anchoret ; 
Pachomius introduced the coenobium — the common life, 
the community living together. This reduced the soli- 
tary observance to a system and gave it an impetus and 
a strength such as did not belong to the work of either 
Antony or Hilarion. 

Pachomius was a native of Upper Egypt, born of 
heathen parents about 292. In his youth he served in 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 1 9 

the army, which he left, and, becoming a Christian, 
spent twelve years with a solitary named Palsemon. 
Here he followed the usual rigid course, and in time 
attained to so great an excellency as to receive a visit 
from an angel. The heavenly messenger bade him 
become to others a teacher of that life in which he 
was already proficient, and gave him a brazen tablet on 
which were written the rules of the community he should 
establish. Accordingly, he gathered a number of disci- 
ples, and with them set out to find a place where they 
might build a house and live in peace. A voice from 
heaven indicated to Pachomius the island of Tabenne, 
in the Nile, some distance from Thebes, toward Den- 
darah. Here the river broadens out and is bordered by 
plains of rich black soil covered with cultivated farms 
and dotted with clumps of palms. The limestone hills 
hem in the valley on both sides; beyond them is the 
desert, to the east skirted by the Red Sea, to the west 
bounded — so the ancient Egyptians thought — by the in- 
finity which edged the region of the dead. Possibly, 
Pachomius profited by his military experience ; at any 
rate, the organization and progress of his establishment 
showed executive ability and practical sense. Before his 
death, in 348, not only had the community at Tabenne 
fourteen hundred inmates, but seven other houses in 
Thebais contained over sixteen hundred members. In 
less than a century later there were not less than fifty 
thousand cenobites. 

The rules written on the brazen tablet given by the 
angel to Pachomius provided for a thoroughly-organized 
society. The brethren were divided, according to their 
intellectual and spiritual proficiency, into twenty-four 



120 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

classes, each of which was named after a letter of the 
Greek alphabet. The lowest class was the iota («), the 
highest the xi (?), the complicated shape of the letter 
corresponding with the excellency of the class. Each 
group was divided into hundreds, and the hundreds, 
again, into tens, the latter bands being under decurions 
and the former under centurions. The whole commu- 
nity was governed by an abbot, or archimandrite, to 
whom absolute obedience was yielded. Branches of 
the brotherhood were subject to the authority of the 
chief of the original house. Each society had a 
steward, who managed its business affairs and rendered 
an account to the head-steward at Tabenne. All things 
were in common : no brother could speak of cloak, 
book or pen as his own, or in reference to anything of 
earth use the word " my." The habit consisted of an 
under-dress of linen, a hood and — in imitation of Elijah 
— a mantle of white goatskin. The mantle was laid off 
at the reception of the Eucharist, and the tunic was 
changed for the purpose of washing; otherwise, the 
garments remained on day and night. The rule was 
unique and exact on the point of clean linen. Sleep 
was had in chairs so constructed as to keep the body 
almost in a standing posture. Each cell had three in- 
mates. Among the daily duties prescribed, prayer was 
of primary importance. The angel directed Pachomius 
that during the twenty-four hours thirty-six orations 
should be offered, twelve during the day, twelve in the 
evening and twelve at night. Some brethren exceeded 
this number and at their work went on with their devo- 
tions. Before each meal psalms were sung; then in 
silence and with cowl drawn closely over the face, so 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 121 

that no brother could see aught but the food before him, 
the bread and the water were taken. Occasionally oil, 
salt, fruits or vegetables were added and one of the 
society read or recited aloud lections from the Bible. 
The fourth and sixth days of the week were appointed 
for fasting ; the Sabbath and the Lord's day, for com- 
municating, Nor was manual labor neglected : agricul- 
ture and boat-building, basket-weaving, ropemaking and 
the arts of the tanner, tailor, carpenter and smith were 
practised, the produce being taken down the Nile to 
Alexandria in vessels belonging to and manned by 
brethren of the community. Not only was money 
sufficient to support the brotherhood thus brought in, 
but much was left over for charity. No member was 
allowed to receive or to retain any earnings for himself: 
his gains went into the general fund or were distributed 
among the poor, the sick being the objects of special 
care. Nor under such a discipline were such ghostly 
experiences common as those which tried the anchorets. 
The demons which afflicted the man cut off from all in- 
tercourse with his fellows avoided the company of the 
busy, frugal and cleanly brethren. Communication of 
the whole society, the parent body and the branches 
was preserved by an assembly at Tabenne twice a year, 
at Easter and in the month of August. At the latter 
festival was celebrated the reconciliation of all with God 
and with one another. 

A community similar to that at Tabenne was about 
the same time founded by Macarius ^Egyptius, or the 
elder, in the desert of Scetis, on the Libyan frontier of 
Egypt. This monk wrote spiritual homilies and died 
in 390, after sixty years of life in the wilderness. Am- 



122 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

mon, like-minded, established societies in the same vast 
solitude — about the Natron mountains, west of Mem- 
phis. These Nitrian brethren, who by the end of the 
century numbered five thousand souls, lived, not in one 
house, but in separate cells, and observed such rules as 
meeting together for worship on the first and last days 
of the week and visiting one another in case of sickness 
or of absence from divine service. Except on necessary 
occasions, strict silence was enjoined. There was no 
individual possession of property : all gains which a 
brother might make went into the general fund. Once 
a member "rather saving than avaricious " left at his 
death a hundred solidi which he had earned by weav- 
ing flax. Some were for giving it to the poor; some, 
to the Church ; others, to the relatives of the deceased. 
But the fathers of the society, by the Holy Ghost speak- 
ing in them, quoted the text, " Thy money perish with 
thee!" and ordered that it should be buried with its 
owner. This, Jerome, who tells the story, adds, was 
done not out of harshness toward the deceased monk, 
but to deter others from hoarding. 

Possibly the entire suppression of such practices was 
economically necessary, but the killing of natural affec- 
tion, even if requisite to the Egyptian ideal of mona- 
chism, appears in a repulsive light. The anchoret or 
the cenobite was required literally to give up father and 
mother, brother and sister, wife and child. He knew no 
kindred according to the flesh. The pain so complete a 
severing of ties must have caused indicates the terrible 
earnestness and sincerity of the man who endured it ; we 
both pity and admire. Pior, one of Antony's disciples, 
on leaving his father's house for the solitude, vowed that 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 23 

he would never again look upon any of his relations. 
Fifty years later his sister discovered that he was still 
alive. She was too infirm to seek him out, but at her 
earnest entreaties his superiors ordered Pior to visit her. 
Arriving in front of her dwelling, he sent her notice of 
his presence. As the door opened he closed his eyes, 
and held them obstinately shut throughout the inter- 
view ; and, having allowed his sister to see him in this 
fashion, he refused to enter her house and hurried back 
to the desert. Even Pachomius could not free himself 
from the fetters of a grossly-mistaken notion. When 
his sister, moved with the fame of his work and insti- 
tution, presented herself at Tabenne, the abbot, on being 
informed of her arrival, desired the porter to beg that 
she would be content with the assurance of his welfare. 
He would not see her, but informed her that if she would 
follow his manner of life he would prepare her a house 
in the neighborhood. She consented. The brethren of 
Tabenne built a monastery for women ; Pachomius wrote 
for it a rule on the model of his own ; and in a short 
time his sister became the superior of a large commu- 
nity. The formation of societies of female recluses after 
this was rapid ; they were complete in themselves. 

A still more extraordinary example of this spirit of 
cruelty appears in Mutius. He took his son, a boy of 
eight years, to the gates of a monastery and humbly 
knocked for admission. His appeal was for long left 
unanswered; then the brethren, moved with his con- 
stancy, suffered him to enter and begin a probation of 
which that weary waiting at the door was scarcely a 
shadow. His boy was taken from him, ill-treated in 
every way, dressed in rags, kept in a filthy state, often 



124 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

beaten without cause; but Mutius made no remon- 
strance. At length, on being told by the abbot to 
throw his son into the river, he obeyed the command. 
The boy was saved, and it was revealed to the abbot 
that the new inmate was a second Abraham. 

Such tests of obedience were constantly required of 
candidates. One man was commanded to remove a 
huge rock, and he struggled at the manifestly hopeless 
task until worn out by the violence of his exertions. 
At another time he was ordered to water a dry stick 
twice a day, and for a year he faithfully persisted in 
the work, toiling, whether sick or well, through all the 
inclemencies of the seasons, to fetch the water twice 
every day from a distance of two miles. On being 
asked, at length, by his superior whether the plant had 
struck root, the monk completed his obedience by mod- 
estly answering that he did not know ; whereupon the 
abbot, pulling up the stick, released him from his task. 
Sulpicius Severus affirms that the same thing was done 
for three years by another monk, but that his obedience 
was rewarded by the shooting of the wood, which the 
historian professes to have seen as a flourishing shrub. 
Possibly it was a miracle, but the sprig may have been 
of the willow. Absolute submission was a condition 
of organized monachism in all after-ages ; only the 
ingenuity and tyranny with which tasks were devised 
and exacted naturally depended upon the tastes and 
convictions of the superior officer. 

The penances of the Egyptian cenobites were as re- 
markable as they were severe. Heron, one of the mo- 
nastic society in the desert of Nitria, carried his morti- 
fications to such an extent that he could travel thirty 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 25 

miles into the desert under the scorching rays of the 
sun without food or drink, repeating, as he went, pas- 
sages from the Bible, and could live for three months on 
nothing but the bread of the Eucharist and wild herbs. 
In his case a reaction set in. He fled from the solitude 
to Alexandria, where he plunged into every possible ex- 
cess. His wild license brought on a severe illness, in 
the course of which he was brought back to his senses, 
repented of the evil, craved for the higher life he had 
lost, and died. The same aberration afflicted another 
brother, Ptolemy by name. He was an anchoret and 
lived fourteen miles from the nearest spring of water. 
In a part of the Nitrian wilds where no man had ever 
dared to live he dwelt alone for fifteen years, collecting 
in earthen vessels during the months of December and 
January the dew which at that season plentifully covers 
the rocks, and using none but that for all his needs. 
Scepticism took hold of him : he concluded that the 
whole creation was a phantasm and sprang into exist- 
ence without a creator ; so he forsook the desert and, 
wandering from one city to another, gave himself up 
to riot and gluttony. 

Others managed to go through the severities of this 
life without reaching such sad conclusions. One of the 
monks of the Scetis, called Paul the Simple, said three 
hundred prayers a day, keeping an account of them by 
pebbles. He regretted that he was outdone in this re- 
spect by a certain virgin who prayed seven hundred 
times within the day. It was sensibly remarked by one 
to whom he expressed his regret, " / pray only one hun- 
dred times a day, and my conscience never reproaches 
me on that account ; if your conscience reproaches you, 



126 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

either you do not pray with your heart or you might 
pray oftener." 

This was the answer of Macarius, surnamed Alexan- 
drinus, or " the Younger," to distinguish him from the 
individual of the same name already mentioned. He 
was born at Alexandria about the year 304, and for 
some time practised the trade of a confectioner in that 
city. His conscience was peculiar. He happened one 
day, according to Alban Butler, inadvertently to kill a 
gnat that was biting him in his cell, and, reflecting that 
he had lost the opportunity of suffering that mortifica- 
tion, he hastened from the cell to the marshes of Scetis, 
which abound with great flies whose stings pierce even 
wild boars. There he continued six months, exposed to 
those ravaging insects ; and to such a degree was his 
whole body disfigured by them, with sores and swell- 
ings, that when he returned he was to be known only 
by his voice. According to legend, he was sorely trou- 
bled by demons. The stories, though puerile, have a 
certain interest. In a nine days' journey through the 
desert, at the end of every mile he set up a reed in the 
earth to mark his track against he returned ; but the 
devil pulled them all up, made a bundle of them and 
placed them at Macarius's head while he lay asleep, so 
that the saint with great difficulty found his way home 
again. On another occasion, the worthy anchoret hav- 
ing had the strange taste to take a dead pagan out of 
his sepulchre and use him for a pillow, a number of 
imps came to frighten the saint by calling upon the 
pagan to go with them. This the latter replied he 
could not do, for a pilgrim lay upon him ; whereupon 
Macarius, nothing terrified, beat the pagan with his fist 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 27 

and bade him go if he would, and forthwith the demons 
themselves departed. Another dead pagan in answer to 
Macarius's inquiries gave him much information con- 
cerning the infernal regions : in extent the bottomless 
pit was deeper than from heaven to earth, and of its 
occupants first came pagans, then Jews, and afterward, 
because more grievously tormented, false Christians ; 
from which we learn that justice will be meted accord- 
ing to gifts and opportunities. Nor was Macarius's ex- 
perience exclusively supernatural. He was eminent for 
extraordinary austerities. For seven years together he 
lived only on raw herbs and pulse, and for the three 
following years he contented himself with four or five 
ounces of bread a day. The brethren at Tabenne were 
astonished when, on spending a Lent with them, he 
passed through the forty days on the aliment furnished 
by a few green cabbage-leaves eaten on Sundays. His 
humility saved him from exultation in acts of charity. 
When the inclination was strong to quit the desert and 
go to Rome to serve the sick in the hospitals there, he 
detected the secret artifice of vainglory inciting him to 
attract the eyes and esteem of the world. The devil 
again interposed, and, as his importunities increased, 
Macarius threw himself on the ground in his cell and 
cried out, " Drag me hence, if you can, by force, for I 
will not stir." In the morning, to escape further temp- 
tation, he filled two great baskets with sand, and, laying 
them on his shoulders, travelled along the wilderness, 
thus, in his own words, tormenting his tormentor. He 
returned home in the evening much fatigued in body, 
but freed from the temptation. His experience justified 
him in writing a rule for monks, and, having spent the 



128 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

years from 335 in the wilderness, about 394 or 404 he 
died. 

The unquestionable piety of the disciples of mona- 
chism received a further illustration in the hermit Pambos. 
He could not read, and went to some one to be taught a 
psalm. The thirty-ninth was chosen. As soon as he 
had heard the first portion of the first verse — " I said, 
I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my 
tongue " — he departed without staying to hear the re- 
mainder, saying that what he had heard was enough if 
only he could learn to practise it. His instructor, meet- 
ing him six months afterward, reproved him for not 
coming sooner to continue his lesson ; Pambos replied 
that he had not yet practically learned the first words. 
Many years afterward, being again asked if he had yet 
learned them, he answered, " In nineteen years I have 
scarcely learned to practise what they teach." Such a 
reply indicates the reality of the Christian experience 
and suggests the fulfilment of the noble words of Cyp- 
rian : " When the soul, in its gaze into heaven, has 
recognized its Author, it rises higher than the sun and 
far transcends all this earthly power, and begins to be 
that which it believes itself to be." There were many 
misapprehensions and many misinterpretations, but un- 
derlying the life was a pure sincerity, an honest desire 
to do the will of God. 

The rapidity with which monachism spread was sec- 
ond scarcely to that of Christianity itself. By the end 
of the fourth century it was believed that in Egypt alone 
the number of monks was equal to the remainder of the 
people. In the one city of Oxyrinchus the bishop com- 
puted ten thousand females and twenty thousand males 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 29 

of the monastic profession. The festival of Easter is 
said to have attracted to Tabenne fifty thousand breth- 
ren. People everywhere were possessed with the desire 
to imitate the men who were willing to sacrifice all that 
they might win for themselves the crown of life. Ascet- 
icism in this form became the popular conception of the 
religion of Jesus Christ. There was no alternative : if 
a man would be his disciple, he must away to the mon- 
astery, and there spend the years in prayers and pen- 
ances, in submission and self-abnegation. While the 
pyramids and the remains of temples testify to the spirit 
of the worshippers of Osiris and Ra, the ruins of relig- 
ious houses which abound throughout the deserts and 
mountains bordering on the Nile exhibit the extent and 
power of this development of Christianity. As we have 
already seen, it speedily passed into Syria; from there 
it magnified itself through Western Asia. Europe was 
soon open to its influence. One land only for long and 
persistently opposed it — a land which happened to be 
then the brightest of all the lands of Christendom — the 
region round about Carthage, the territory under the 
jurisdiction of the Church of North Africa. Neither 
the ecclesiasticism of a Cyprian nor the severity of a 
Tertullian had furthered the cause of monachism among 
a people as remarkable for their intelligence and grasp 
of truth as for their devotion and purity of living. If 
Rome was the seat of empire and Alexandria the home 
of philosophy, the city and realm of the Phoenician Car- 
thage was for long the abiding-place of the highest 
type of spiritual power and grace. But even it was 
not impregnable. Its strongholds were taken by the 
Egyptian spirit, and, for good or for ill, the mighty flood 



130 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

covered the whole world, from the river of the Pharaohs 
to the gates of Heracles and from the deserts of Africa 
to the hills and valleys of Norway and Scotland. 

Nor was it in extent only that the development existed. 
Though as yet no unification of rules had been accom- 
plished and the system remained in a crude though 
popular form, the evolution tended very early to eccen- 
tricity. Some peculiarities have been indicated already, 
but nothing exceeded in wild vagary and tasteless non- 
sense the life of the Stylites. Of these the most remark- 
able was Symeon called " the Elder " to distinguish him 
from another pillar-saint of the same name. He was 
born about 390 in the mountain-region between Syria 
and Cilicia. His father was an owner of sheep, and the 
boyhood of Symeon was spent in tending the flocks. 
Though in the neighborhood of busy lands and famous 
for the exploits of Cicero when proconsul of the prov- 
ince, the district is lonely and wild. To the west lies 
the rich and fertile Cilicia Pedias, walled in by the lofty 
heights of Mount Taurus and traversed by the waters 
of the Cydnus, the Sarus and the Pyramus. On the 
banks of the first-named stream — in whose swiftly-flow- 
ing current the great Alexander, venturing to bathe, 
nearly lost his life — stands Tarsus, the birthplace of St. 
Paul. The buffalo frequents the marshy tracts near the 
sea, and in the narrow pass which divides the Amanus 
from the Mediterranean, three centuries before Christ, 
the mighty Macedonian won his first victory over the 
king of Persia. Away to the east, by the walls of Sam- 
osata and skirting the region of Mesopotamia, flows 
the Euphrates. In the dreary border-land, the haunt 
of bandits and leopards as well as of herdsmen and 



GR O WTH OF MONA CHISM. 1 3 1 

shepherds, Symeon remained till he attained the age 
of thirteen years. The solitude and the religious tend- 
ency of the times prepared his mind for the words which 
he one day heard in church upon the duty of giving up 
the world and following the example of the holy men 
and women who had obeyed the divine calling. The 
boy at once sought admission into a strict Syrian mon- 
astery ; there he remained nine years, by his abstinences 
and other mortifications exciting the wonder and admi- 
ration of the brethren. A legend affirms that one day, 
on being sent to draw water, he took the rough palm- 
rope of the well, bound it tightly around him and pre- 
tended that he had been unable to find it. At the end 
of a fortnight the secret was betrayed by the drops of 
blood which the rope forced out from his flesh, and on 
examination it was found to have eaten into his body so 
deeply that it could hardly be seen. Symeon bore with- 
out a groan the torture of having it extracted, but would 
not allow any remedies to be applied to his wounds, and 
the abbot thereupon begged that he would leave the 
monastery lest his severities should raise a spirit of 
emulation which might be dangerous to the weaker 
brethren. The power of endurance does not excuse 
the perversity of conscience, nor did the preserver of 
the tradition by it add to the renown of his hero. 
However, from the monastery the youth of scarcely 
more than twenty years went to the mountain of Te- 
leuissa, some thirty or forty miles east of Antioch. 
Here he built a small circle of stones, and in that nar- 
row pen, attached by a ponderous chain, he confined 
himself for ten years. His fame spread, and, with the 
twofold object of escaping the pressure of the crowds 



132 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

which were desirous to touch him and of making more 
severe his life of penance, he built a pillar nine feet high 
and one yard in diameter. The rest of his life — thirty- 
seven years — was spent on such heights. He succes- 
sively increased the altitude, till at last he rested upon a 
pillar forty cubits, or sixty feet, high. Day and night 
he was exposed to the elements of nature, his food one 
scanty meal a week, brought to him by some admiring 
disciples, and his raiment the skins of beasts. His neck 
was loaded with an iron chain. A railing around the 
top of the pillar kept him from falling off and afforded 
him some relief by leaning against it. Twice a day he 
exhorted the assembled multitudes, and occasionally he 
uttered prophecies and wrought miracles. His devotions 
were as frequent as his attitudes were extraordinary. 
Sometimes he prayed kneeling, sometimes standing 
with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, but 
more often he kept continually bending his thin, shriv- 
elled body so that his forehead almost touched his feet. 
A spectator once counted twelve hundred and forty-four 
repetitions of this movement, and then lost his reckon- 
ing. At first his peculiar manner of life created oppo- 
sition — one community of monks reminded him that 
such fashions of holiness as had sufficed the saints of 
earlier days were still sufficient, and the brethren of 
Egypt excommunicated him for his innovation — but in 
a little while not only was he received into favor, but 
his life was compared to that of the angels, offering up 
prayers for men from his elevated station and bringing 
down graces on them. 

Satan considered Symeon and designed his downfall ; 
he appeared to him in the form of an angel and accom- 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 33 

panied by a chariot of fire. A second Elijah was invited 
to ascend to the company of saints and angels who were 
eager to welcome him ; but when Symeon, on raising 
his right foot to enter the chariot, made the sign of the 
cross, the tempter vanished. The act of presumption 
was punished with an ulcer in the thigh, and Symeon 
resolved that the foot which he had put forth should 
never again touch his pillar. During the remaining 
year of his life he supported himself on one leg. 

So great was the admiration excited by this curious 
and pitiful exhibition of religious oddity that from many 
and distant lands pilgrims came to receive from Symeon 
blessing, counsel, sympathy, and sometimes healing. 
From India and Ethiopia, the countries of Western 
Europe, even from Britain, flowed the multitudes. The 
tribes of Saracens disputed in arms the honor of his ben- 
ediction. Kings and bishops, the queens of Arabia and 
Persia, and the emperor himself, consulted him upon 
weighty affairs of Church and State, and gratefully 
acknowledged his wise policy and his supernatural vir- 
tue. Brusque in speech and obstinate in purpose, yet 
he offended no one. When he died, in 460, at the age 
of seventy-two, nature and man together mourned. The 
birds wheeled about his pillar uttering doleful cries ; the 
beasts filled the air with their groans to a distance of 
many miles ; while the mountains, the forests and the 
plains were enveloped in a dense and sympathetic gloom. 
His remains were transported from the scene of his aus- 
terities to Antioch by a solemn procession of high dig- 
nitaries of the Empire and the Church — six bishops, 
twenty-one tribunes and six thousand soldiers — and in 
place of her walls, recently overthrown by an earth- 



134 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

quake, the city received with reverence and delight her 
most precious saint and her most impregnable defence. 

The example set by this renowned ascetic was fol- 
lowed by some whose aim seems to have been in stupid 
austerity to go beyond their master. Symeon bequeathed 
his cowl to the emperor of the East, the Thracian Leo, 
by the orthodox surnamed " the Great " and by the 
Arians nicknamed "the Butcher," but the wearer of 
the purple neither esteemed the saint nor appreciated 
his gift, and the bearer — a disciple, Sergius by name — 
bestowed it upon Daniel, a monk of Mesopotamian 
birth, an admirer of Symeon and famous for both his 
holiness and his miracles. No sooner had the sacred 
hood touched the head of Daniel than he began to 
dream dreams which urged him to take to the life on 
a pillar. A dove led him to a spot about four miles 
north of Constantinople. Opposition arose from the 
owner of the soil, whose permission had not been 
asked, and from the patriarch Gennadius, who was 
either envious of Daniel's holiness or suspicious of his 
secret vanity. Complaints were made to the emperor, 
and, had it not been for prompt and surprising miracles, 
Daniel would have been dislodged. Some time after, 
Gennadius was directed by a vision to give priesthood 
to the Stylite, and upon Daniel's refusing either to allow 
the patriarch to approach him or to come down from his 
exalted station the form of ordination was gone through 
with at the foot of the pillar. Daniel then permitted a 
ladder to be brought, and the patriarch, mounting to the 
top of the column, administered the Eucharist to the new- 
ly-ordained priest and received it at his hands. Before 
long he was as famous as Symeon had been. Kings and 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 35 

emperors visited him with reverence and regarded his 
utterances as those of a heavenly oracle. He was sup- 
posed to have the gifts of prophecy and miracles, and 
showed his humility and his respect for the Church by 
discouraging people who approached him with complaints 
against their bishops. It was in vain that his disciples 
endeavored to discover by what nourishment he sup- 
ported life. From continually standing his feet became 
covered with sores and ulcers, and sometimes the high 
winds of Thrace stripped him of his scanty clothing and 
almost blew him away. In the winter he was not unfre- 
quently covered with snow and ice, until Leo forcibly 
enclosed the top of his pillar with a shed. At last, in the 
year 494, at the age of eighty, and after thirty-three 
years of this vainglorious and unprofitable life, death 
put a period to his miseries and bestowed upon him an 
unenviable saintship. 

A contemporary, Symeon Maumastorites, is said to 
have dwelt sixty years on his pillar, and down to the 
twelfth century imitators were to be found in Syria and 
in Greece; but, except in the warm countries of the 
East, the fashion found little favor. When one Wulfi- 
laich, toward the end of the sixth century, attempted to 
practise it in the district of Treves, the neighboring 
bishops ordered his pillar to be demolished. Both 
climate and practical common sense prevented the 
movement from making any foothold in the Latin 
and the Teutonic lands of Europe. 

Other similarly miserable exaggerations were dis- 
played in the Boscoi, or " grazers." These derived their 
name from their humble practice of grazing in the fields 
of Mesopotamia and Palestine with the herds of cattle. 



1 36 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

They dwelt in mountains or in deserts, and, without roof 
to shelter them from the heat and the cold, almost entire- 
ly naked and browsing on grass and herbs, they lost the 
likeness of humanity and became as the beasts that per- 
ish. That which Nebuchadnezzar did from necessity they 
did from choice. Ephraem the Edessene composed a 
panegyric upon them ; later ages have universally con- 
demned so painful a caricature of life and lamented so 
unhappy a disease of the human mind. 

To such an extreme of extravagance did the fanati- 
cism proceed that sOme anchorets actually feigned mad- 
ness to show to the people their superiority to all human 
feelings and their contempt for worldly glory. They 
passed from city to city and before admiring throngs 
displayed a ridiculous and an unseemly behavior. Few, 
indeed, imitated them ; for, low as man may fall both in 
intelligence and in morals, he is not liable voluntarily 
to disown his reason and to make himself lower than 
the creation which is guided by instinct. 

It will be understood that none of these abnormal con- 
ditions of monachism developed within the communities : 
there a healthier spirit prevailed ; and, though the whole 
conception was as yet in a crude and imperfect state, 
it was gradually working toward that which, by bring- 
ing order out of chaos and by transplanting the move- 
ment in other lands, should make it both useful to the 
Church and an honor to humanity. From the first these 
wild vagaries were condemned by the leaders both in the 
Church and within the system itself. The brutish igno- 
rance and the insane devices of the Egyptian and Syrian 
devotees could not meet with the approval of the men 
trained in the schools of Alexandria or accustomed to 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 37 

the life of Constantinople, Rome and other leading cities 
of the Empire. The unthinking multitudes might ad- 
mire, as they ever do admire that which is strange and 
unnatural ; but even they would find in the utter abnega- 
tion of self and society needful to make such eccentri- 
cities possible a barrier against imitation through which 
few would venture to break. It was not, indeed, easy 
to give up so much that the simple anchoretic or 
cenobitic discipline demanded ; to go beyond into the 
excesses of the Stylitoi or the Boscoi required not only 
that, but, besides, a mental condition which would now 
be considered a qualification for a place other than 
the top of a pillar or a grazing-spot in a meadow. 
The most merciful interpretation we can give to the 
fashion we thus deplore is to ascribe it to the evo- 
lution of madness. Pure, perhaps, in their desires, 
solitude, emulation and ignorance led these men on till 
the affected brain manifested itself in a vitiated and an 
inhuman life. At any rate, monachism is no more to 
be charged with such interpretations of its principles 
than is Christianity itself with the abuses exhibited 
both in sects and in individuals who profess to be 
guided by its spirit and to observe its precepts. Every 
system has its extremes — unauthorized, irrational and 
deplorable — but no extremes describe the system or 
reveal its life. 

It is well here to direct attention to the fact that the 
clergy neither originated nor for long interfered with 
monachism : a monk was no more necessarily a priest 
than an abbot was a bishop. Both the solitary and the 
cenobite life were distinct from the ministry ; the latter, 
acknowledged to be divine in its establishment, did not 



138 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

need, and never claimed to have, the supernatural revela- 
tions which accompanied the beginnings of almost every 
development of monachism. In fact, the clergy long 
looked with suspicion and antagonism upon both her- 
mits and brotherhoods—some even in the ages when 
the whole Church was under the influence of these 
communities. The' priest was married and lived with 
his family in the midst of his people ; he was familiar 
with the ways of the world and mingled in its various 
pursuits. Some scholarship was needful for his work ; 
much sympathy and knowledge of human nature, to 
make him efficient both as a preacher and as a pastor. 
His inclinations and his life, therefore, did not lead him 
to look upon the wilderness and the monastery with 
favor, while his busy, practical mind enabled him fre- 
quently to see more than true, godly notions swaying 
the career of many who separated themselves from their 
fellows. But he was at a disadvantage. He preached 
self-denial, the giving up of all things for God's sake, 
abstemiousness of diet and pleasures, the working out 
of salvation by deeds of penance and charity ; the monk 
who wandered through the streets of his parish, and 
perhaps visited the homes of his people, was the actual, 
living exemplification of these virtues. Men saw his suf- 
ferings voluntarily inflicted, and they wondered at the 
severity and the purity of a life which was within their 
conception, but beyond their imitation. This stranger, 
emaciated, worn out by austerities, clad in coarse sack- 
cloth or stiff skins, fasting, praying, watching, intensely 
in earnest, regardless of the world, — how noble appeared 
his life ! How like he was unto Him who had no place 
where to lay his head ! How much truer he seemed 



GROWTH OF MONACHISM. 1 39 

than the priest whom they saw every day and whose 
infirmities of temper and deficiencies of work they knew 
so well ! And thus gradually the clerical influence was 
undermined, till after a while bishops began to confer 
priesthood on some of the monks and some of the 
clergy turned monk, and monachism obtained power 
within the parochial organization. Even the episcopate 
itself was affected : monks became bishops and bishops 
became monks. Yet all through the ages, though the 
priesthood and the monastic life were frequently held 
by the same individual, the two things were not neces- 
sarily allied : there were always clergy who were not 
hermits or cenobites, and there were always hermits 
and cenobites who were not clergy. 

It is also worthy of note that, while the communities 
of men and women under the vows of monachism were 
separate from the parish, they for many years recognized 
the jurisdiction of the bishop. The diocese was com- 
plete in itself and he was its head and its ruler, the cen- 
tre of all work and the authority over all sorts and con- 
ditions of men. In the absence of any perfect organiza- 
tion or general rule, his power in the monasteries within 
his spiritual territory varied from an almost absolute 
superintendency to a refined and delicate visitorship. 
But even as the episcopate developed and was magni- 
fied in the Church the tendency of monachism was to 
independence and autonomy. The abbot aspired to 
free and unfettered government ; the community strove 
against the possibility of the interference of a clerical 
synod or of a bishop who might not only disapprove of, 
but positively oppose, both its principles and its exist- 
ence. So far no divergence from the universal order of 



140 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Christendom that the bishop should be over all was 
apparent; neither monachism nor papacy expressed 
any antagonism to him ; but rebellion was innate in 
the system, and it needed only time to make it supreme 
over its own votaries and powerful outside of its own 
borders. 



CHAPTER V. 

(Srijoes from |itoa. 

The history of Rome is both fascinating and signif- 
icant. From the Roman people we have derived much 
of our literature, laws, customs and economy ; from their 
experience we may gather, perchance, that which may 
save us from much sorrow and from final ruin. For, 
wise and mighty as they were, they could not avert the 
decline of their power. Throughout the early centuries 
of the Christian era that decline continued. In name 
the republic still lived — its customs were honored and 
its forms were observed — but greater than the Senate 
were the soldiers, and the latter rather than the former 
gave the Roman world its master. In that master, 
without either the name or the state of rex, were united 
the offices of consul and tribune, and under the humble 
title of " imperator " was gathered all the power which 
irresponsible ambition desired and which a vast army 
was glad to give. Thus, with a Senate forced into 
acquiescence, the emperor reigned — nominally as the 
first magistrate of the commonwealth, actually as the 
personification of military despotism — and the world 
lay at his feet cowering and vimless. Everything, there- 
fore, depended upon the character and the disposition 
of the emperor. Nearly all who held the office were 
remarkable either for their virtues or for their vices. 

141 



142 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

After Trajan, among the former were Antoninus, Mar- 
cus Aurelius, Alexander Severus and Claudius Gothicus; 
among the latter were Commodus, Caracalla and Elagab- 
alus. But the day was near at hand when Rome her- 
self should be lost in the world she had made, and when 
the very name of the republic should fade into the glory 
or the shame of empire. 

This day began in A. d. 284, when the purple fell to 
Diocletian, a brave soldier and a native of Dalmatia. 
In him flowed no patrician, or even Roman, blood, but 
the strength and vigor of his mind, his prudence, dex- 
terity and statesmanship, were manifested in his work. 
Of a weak and shattered realm he reconstructed a strong 
and compact dominion, and gave to it peace within and 
triumph abroad. From securing his own personal pow- 
er he proceeded to clear away all the fictions and dis- 
guises by which the people persuaded themselves that 
they were still as their fathers were, and in their stead 
to give them a despotic court and a despotic govern- 
ment. Rome now knew that she had a lord, and one 
who was not afraid to declare himself such. Rome 
soon learned that the capital of the empire was not 
necessarily the city on the Tiber, but wheresoever the 
emperor chose to dwell. And ere long the emperor 
withdrew his court and left Rome to grieve over her 
dishonor, and, as events afterward turned out, to make 
of the Christian bishop a pope — of the successor of the 
fisherman of Galilee a pontifcx maximus. Had Diocle- 
tian remained in Rome, in all probability there had been 
in later years no papacy — no greater ecclesiastical digni- 
tary than he who now rules in Constantinople or he who 
governs at Canterbury. 



ECHOES FROM NIC MA. 1 43 

Moreover, Diocletian found the weight of empire too 
much for one pair of shoulders ; so in 286 he selected 
as a colleague his countryman the unlettered but valiant 
and experienced soldier Maximianus, and, sharing the 
jurisdiction between them, the two reigned under the 
title of "Augusti." But the cares multiplied, and, in 
292, Diocletian determined upon dividing the empire 
into four parts, and upon associating with himself and 
Maximianus two coadjutors who should be called " Cae- 
sars." Two fellow-Illyrians were chosen — Constantius 
Chlorus and Galerius — and, to make more sure of their 
loyalty, both were obliged to repudiate their wives and 
to marry, the former Theodora, stepdaughter of Max- 
imianus, and the latter Valeria, daughter of Diocletian. 
Both the Caesars were to recognize the superior rank 
of the Augusti, and, of the Augusti, Diocletian remained 
supreme. The Roman world, therefore, consisted of 
four great divisions which in time were called " praeto- 
rian prefectures," and, for readier government, the prefec- 
tures were broken up into dioceses, and the dioceses into 
provinces. Of these divisions, that of the extreme West, 
embracing Britain, Gaul and Spain, was assigned to Con- 
stantius, with his capital at Treves ; that of the extreme 
East, consisting of Thrace, Asia, Syria and Egypt, was 
retained by Diocletian, with his capital at Nicomedia ; 
that of the Western mid-empire, covering Italy and 
Africa, was given to Maximianus, with his capital at 
Milan ; and that of the Eastern mid-empire, containing 
Illyricum and the Danubian provinces, fell to the lot 
of Galerius, with his capital at Sirmium. The estab- 
lishment of four strange and remote cities as capitals 
degraded Rome still more and enabled the Augusti 



144 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and the Csesars to strengthen their position, to enforce 
their authority, and to surround themselves with all the 
splendor of kings. Their persons receive a sacred and 
mysterious grandeur; they are robed in vestments of 
gold ; upon their feet are slippers of silk dyed in pur- 
ple and embroidered with gems ; upon their brow is set 
a diadem of marvellous workmanship and costly mate- 
rials ; and they are fenced around with a thousand intri- 
cacies of complicated etiquette. The empire learned to 
obey its lords and to fear their majesty. Rebellion was 
next to impossible, since the army was divided into four 
parts ; every long line of frontier was carefully guarded, 
so as to prevent invasion ; and it was hoped that jealousy 
would hinder any two of the princes uniting in any act 
of treason to the whole. 

That Diocletian for the most part exercised his tre- 
mendous powers with wisdom and mercy is no more to 
be denied than that such tremendous powers were neces- 
sary for the salvation of the empire. His success nei- 
ther turned his head nor changed his heart ; to the last 
he retained his practical sense and his kindly disposition. 
If for his buildings, his bridges and roads and the main- 
tenance of the state and the army he taxed the people 
heavily and mercilessly, he also abolished monopolies, 
encouraged trade, advanced merit, repressed corruption, 
administered justice, and with singular unselfishness 
sought to further the comfort and the prosperity of his 
subjects. If he was a despot, it was because despotism 
was the only hope of Rome. Nor did he act without 
sympathy : the people willingly accepted, and even sought 
to further, his policy. But in the way of that policy the 
people saw what Diocletian did not see. Rightly or 



ECHOES FROM NICMA. 1 45 

wrongly, they felt that the growth of Christianity was 
inimical to the growth of absolutism and fatal to the 
continuance of the ancient regime. The empire had now 
become more than the gods, and the religious antago- 
nism had changed into a political antagonism. Diocle- 
tian was a devout pagan, but, with noble indifference to 
personal opinions, he had suffered the Christians to pur- 
sue their own devices ; he protected them from moles- 
tation, as he protected all his subjects ; he allowed them 
to build churches and to hold public services ; some of. 
his state and household officers were avowed disciples of 
the Lord Jesus ; and it was an open secret that his own 
wife and daughter favored Christianity and abstained 
from heathen Avorship. By this time almost every im- 
portant city in the empire had its bishop ; the bishops 
in each province were now united under one of their 
number, who was called " metropolitan ;" synods were 
held once or twice a year ; colleges were established ; 
clergy were scattered throughout town and country 
either as pastors or as missionaries ; and, what was per- 
haps one of the surest signs of prosperity, heresies and 
divisions were not uncommon. Therefore everywhere 
the adherents of the old systems found themselves con- 
fronted with an organized vigorous society ever on the 
alert to further its interests, aggressive, irreconcilable, 
recognizing Christ to be greater than Caesar, convinced 
of its undying life, and by its very inherent principles 
threatening to overthrow much, if not all, that the world 
now held dear. 

The danger from this compact and powerful body was 
pointed out to Diocletian. From the banks of the Eu- 
phrates and from the Taurian hills against the sun-ris- 
10 



146 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

ing to the very shores of the Atlantic, spread the follow- 
ers of Jesus, bound together by the closest ties of sym- 
pathy and governed by a disciplined hierarchy and a 
graduated clergy. But for nineteen years Diocletian was 
deaf to all persuasions. Then, in a. d. 303, when he was 
rapidly falling into ill-health, Galerius prevailed upon 
him to issue an edict of repression. Reluctantly he fell 
under the influence of this powerful but vicious Caesar. 
One edict after another was sent out, and soon began 
a persecution which proved to be the severest, as it was 
also the last, of all. It began in his own capital of Nico- 
media, and spread with the rapidity of a wind-swept fire 
throughout his entire jurisdiction. Galerius eagerly car- 
ried it on in his part of the empire ; with even greater 
avidity the coarse and superstitious Maximianus obeyed 
the edict ; nor, in spite of the reluctance of Constantius, 
did the West altogether escape. Never was such fero- 
city exhibited or such wholesale and widespread ruin 
wrought. Cruelty exhausted its ingenuity ; all that 
demoniacal passion could do was done. In some places 
the prisons were filled with bishops and clergy ; so that 
no room could be found for malefactors. Women were 
outraged and torn to pieces ; children were crushed and 
dashed to death ; men were crucified, beheaded, hanged, 
drowned, impaled, and sometimes, smeared over with 
honey, left bound in the burning sun to be stung to 
death by bees and wasps. The very strength and thor- 
ough government of the empire made the persecution 
all the more complete. Every province, town and vil- 
lage felt the pulsation of the heart at Nicomedia. The 
awfulness of the trial made so deep an impression upon 
the Church that for three or four centuries after the 



ECHOES FROM NICjEA. 1 47 

years were numbered, not from the era of Christianity, 
but from the era of martyrs — A. d. 284. Special efforts 
were made to destroy the sacred books of the Christians 
and all the accessories of their worship, and, while the 
Church lightly esteemed those of her number who in 
the hour of fear " lapsed " from the faith, she regarded 
with abhorrence the traditores — those who had handed 
over to the heathen the inspired books, the liturgies, the 
legenda collecta, the consecrated vessels or the roll of 
members. Weak ones there were, for in the ore are 
both gold and dross; but, for the greater part, the 
Church was faithful unto death. Nor was Christianity 
in this way to be stamped out : mighty as were the 
Augusti and the Caesars, still mightier was the Christ. 
And thus the three hundred years in which the 
Church testified for her Lord by blood have a glory 
of their own. They set forth the radiance of tribula- 
tion and the splendor of suffering. Exultingly could 
St. Cyprian point to the Bride of Christ in her mingle- 
hued robe : " She was white before in the works of the 
brethren ; now she has become purple in the blood of 
the martyrs." We think with reverence of those whose 
work or office made them great in Sion — of the personal 
disciples of the apostles, Clement, Polycarp and Igna- 
tius ; of Justin Martyr, Pothinus, Irenaeus and Hippol- 
ytus; of the Alexandrian doctors Clement and Origen ; 
and of the Latin Fathers Tertullian, Cyprian and Minu- 
cius Felix; but we think of men such as they not so 
much because of the deeds of their life as for their tes- 
timony unto death. Ringing through the centuries 
come the words of Polycarp as he stood in his fiery 
trial and was urged to revile the Christ : " Fourscore 



148 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and six years have I been his servant, and he hath done 
me no wrong; how, then, can I blaspheme my King 
who saved me ?" Not less memorable is the answer of 
Cyprian to the sentence, " Our pleasure is that Thascius 
Cyprianus be executed by the sword ;" simply and elo- 
quently said he, " Thanks be to God !" Ten times did 
paganism arise in its fierce might; ten times was the 
Church cast into great tribulation and were multitudes 
of the Lord's confessors thrust out of the world. And 
amid the noble army of martyrs, white-robed and scar- 
let-stained, were holy women such as Perpetua and 
Felicitas, the queenly Catherine and Margaret, daisy 
and pearl of Paradise, the tender children Prisca and 
Faith, and the maidens Caecilia, Agnes, Agatha and 
Lucy. These were faithful and true ; these were the 
foundation-stones upon which in great imperial Rome 
was being built the city of God. They testified ; then 
they went to Him who wiped the tears from off their 
face and set upon their brow the crown of life. 

In this same year 303, Diocletian's health rapidly grew 
worse. Though scarcely sixty years of age, his hercu- 
lean labors had told upon him, and the ambitious Gale- 
rius urged him and Maximianus to resign the empire. 
Two years later both Augusti consented. Diocletian 
exalted Constantius and Galerius to the rank of Augus- 
ti, and, passing by Constantine the son of Constantius 
and Maxentius the son of Maximianus, created the two 
nephews of Galerius, Maximin and Severus, Caesars. 
He then cast off the purple, went back to his native 
Dalmatia and occupied the remaining years of his life in 
building and gardening. Health and vigor returned, but 
nothing would tempt him to resume the office he had 



ECHOES FROM NIC^EA. 1 49 

laid aside. Once he was urged to do so ; he simply 
pointed to his cabbages, and refused to abandon them 
for the cares of state. 

With the arrangements of Diocletian neither Constan- 
tius nor his son Constantine was satisfied. The latter 
was now about thirty years of age, noble in person, 
endowed with the choicest gifts of nature and versed 
alike in the art of war and in the customs of the court. 
Of all those around Diocletian, he was best fitted to car- 
ry on the policy which Diocletian had inaugurated ; but 
no appointment was given him. When his father was 
made Caesar and sent to Britain, Constantine was kept 
at Nicomedia as a sort of hostage, and in this position 
Galerius, jealous of his popularity and fearful of his 
genius, sought to continue him. He managed, how- 
ever, to escape to his father; and when, at York, in 
July, 306, his father died, he received from him, with 
the enthusiastic consent of the army, the title of " Au- 
gustus." The struggle with the other rulers of the 
empire immediately began, and was carried on with 
such success on the part of Constantine that five years 
later he was the acknowledged lord of the Western part 
of the empire and in twelve years' time ruler of the 
whole Roman world. Justly was he called "the 
Great." Again he bound together the huge and sep- 
arated fragments of the empire. His skill was able to 
overcome all obstacles. Abroad he was victorious ; at 
home he made anarchy impossible and rebellion un- 
known. Maker of his own fortunes, he rose to the 
highest pinnacle of power and proved himself a worthy 
successor of the mighty Diocletian. And, wiser than 
either Diocletian or his pagan counsellors, he saw that 



150 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Christianity, instead of being an injury, might be made 
to subserve his purposes and to establish his throne. 

With Constantine's accession, therefore, the darksome 
clouds which had so long overspread the Church began 
to pass away, and persecution was brought to an end. 
Whether his conversion arose from the recognition of 
the spiritual truth of Christianity or of its conquests 
and power is a matter of dispute, but he early freed 
the Christians from all political disabilities and took 
an intimate interest in the affairs of the Church. He 
was not baptized till toward the close of his life, and, 
though he practically established Christianity as the 
religion of the state, he neither closely followed its 
teachings nor sought to abolish paganism. Perhaps he 
might be called superstitious rather than religious — a 
moralist rather than a pietist His manner was sarcas- 
tic, yet he was trustful, faithful to his friends, enthusias- 
tic and humorous. If deceived, his wrath was unmeas- 
ured and his vengeance was summary. He had grave 
faults, and some coarse, ugly sins are laid against him, 
so that he cannot be called a saint; yet he regarded 
himself as a Christian, and not only befriended Chris- 
tianity, but also honestly strove to reign as he conceived 
a Christian emperor should reign. Possibly impressed 
with the vision of St. Paul on the way to Damascus and 
desirous of having his own conversion attributed to a like 
supernatural origin, he late in life affirmed that in the year 
312 he beheld surmounting and outshining the midday 
sun a figure of the cross with the legend, " By this con- 
quer." Henceforth he made the cross the insignia both 
of his army and of his state, and around him he gath- 
ered the faithful support and the unswerving loyalty of 



ECHOES FROM NICMA. 151 

the whole Christian Church. Nor did the inconsistency 
of an unbaptized Augustus interfering in ecclesiastical 
matters seem to affect any one. What the pagans 
thought concerned him but little. He avoided Rome, 
and upon the shores of the Bosphorus, at the gate of 
two continents, he built the city which bears his own 
name, and which was destined for more than a millen- 
nium to perpetuate unbroken the empire of the East. 
That which Constantine wrought for Rome was short- 
lived ; that which he did for the Church remains to this 
day. The time was soon to come when the power of 
Rome should be broken beyond all remedy. Goths and 
Vandals and Huns should invade the lands of the Caesars, 
and barbarians — such as Alaric, Attila and Genseric — 
should bring low the pride of earth's proudest realm. 
Men should see Britain forsaken, Mcesia, Spain and 
Gaul rent away, province after province pass under the 
dominion of the stranger, and of the Empire nothing 
remain but a name and a history. When this came to 
pass, over the ruins spread the light of the gospel. The 
heathen whose cruel feet trode down imperial civilization 
were brought under the power of the cross. Among the 
Syrians, Hilarion proclaimed the Christ; among the 
Saracens, Moses ; and among the Goths, Ulfilas ; while 
from Vercelli and Lerins throughout the West went 
upon the same mission like-minded heroes. By the 
time of Constantine not only had Britain been con- 
verted, but the blood of a St. Alban had bound the 
island-realm to the suffering Church of Christ. Already 
could Wales number in her roll of saints her Kentigern, 
Cadoc, David and Iltud; the ever-glorious St. Patrick 
won Ireland for his Lord ; and from Candida Casa were 



152 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

scattered the rays of light over Scotland and the isles 
of the sea. Nestling in the bosom of the wild Western 
ocean was Iona — name ever sacred in the history of the 
Church because of St Columba and of the noble men 
who went out thence. And with this spread of the 
kingdom of God other work went on. Soon was St. 
Benedict at Subiaco and at Monte Cassino to lay the 
foundations of that system of monasticism which should 
be a power and a glory in the Church for more than a 
millennium ; soon at the feet of the Christ should be 
be laid the genius and the power of men such as Greg- 
ory Nazianzen, Ambrose of Milan, Chrysostom of Con- 
stantinople, Augustine of Hippo, Theodore of Mopsues- 
tia, Hilary of Poictiers and Martin of Tours. With the 
conversion of Constantine were built churches the splen- 
dor of which may be seen in the San Lorenzo of Milan, 
the St. Vitalis at Ravenna and the St. Sophia at Con- 
stantinople. Within their walls in waves of Gregorian 
majesty rolled the psalm and hymn of praise, prayers 
were offered in words which had fallen from the lips 
of saints and of martyrs, and grateful hearts and pious 
minds did all they could to make the worship of the 
Church on earth something like the splendor of that 
which angels give in heaven. 

But with prosperity came in many evils. Disputes 
at once arose concerning the faith, and differences of 
administration crept in, both grievous and irritating, and 
oftentimes leading to pronounced heresy and to cruel 
schism. The evil was, indeed, mostly confined to Asia 
Minor, but it necessarily affected both the peace and the 
catholicity of the whole Church. For the Church is 
catholic not only because of her extension through time 



ECHOES FROM NICJEA. 153 

and space, but also, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem declares, 
because she teaches universally and with no omissions 
the entire body of doctrines which men ought to know. 
When she ceases to teach the truth, the whole truth and 
nothing but the truth, she ceases to be catholic, and 
when she ceases to be catholic, her unity is broken — 
not only in the present time, but also with the Church 
of the past ages and with the Church in heaven. 

And what was the faith of the Church ? What were 
the doctrines which led proud emperors and haughty 
kings to give of their lands and of their gold to the ex- 
tension of the religion of the cross, which led men of 
transcendent genius to give their all to that same work, 
and which led many to leave father and mother and all 
that made life happy that they might win some soul, 
perchance that they might suffer and die ? Surely was 
it naught but Christ — He who is both God and man, 
He who is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost in 
the eternal Trinity, He who is Lord of all. It was the 
denial of his deity and eternal generation which made 
it needful that the Church should decide how she under- 
stood the word of God and how she received the mes- 
sage of the gospel. Her work was not to make truth — 
scarcely, perhaps, to define truth — but to ascertain what 
since the revelation of Jesus Christ had throughout the 
ages and throughout her bounds been held — not thought, 
but held — to be true. This was the test to be applied 
to the innovations of heresy, the rule afterward formu- 
lated by St. Vincent Lirinensis : " Quod ubique, quod 
semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est," what has 
always, everywhere and by all been believed. That 
the Church should embrace every possible shade of 



154 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

speculation and nourish those who indulged in such 
was impossible. Broad enough she must be to make 
everything that is true an integral part of her belief, 
but there are limits : everything that is false is under 
her ban. 

Nor could she excuse those who attacked the faith 
because of their piety, sincerity or scholarship, much 
less because of the advances they may have made in in- 
fluence and in territory. Many of the heretics were men 
irreproachable both for character and for ability ; some 
were even princes among their fellows, eloquent, learned, 
popular and powerful ; while here and there they num- 
bered multitudes of adherents — not only whole congre- 
gations, but sometimes, also, whole dioceses. Sufficient, 
however, was it that they had departed from the faith 
once delivered to the saints, and that their inevitable 
tendency was to disruption and to break the succession 
both of order and of doctrine. " The Church," observes 
Cardinal Newman, " is a kingdom ; a heresy is a family 
rather than a kingdom; and as a family continually 
divides and sends out branches, founding new houses 
and propagating itself in colonies, each of them as 
independent as its original head, so was it with heresy." 
Christendom became full of sects and schools, each self- 
confident, boastful and vain, thinking more of self than 
of Christ and caring more that opinions should be exalt- 
ed than that righteousness should triumph. While the 
Church was constructive, building up the kingdom of 
God, they were destructive, tearing in pieces the beau- 
tiful fabric, even as a child wantonly tears the flower 
no ingenuity can re-form. Had this disintegration been 
suffered within the Church, then ruin would have been 



ECHOES FROM NIC&A. 1 55 

certain and irretrievable; but the All-merciful gave to 
her rulers courage and wisdom, without respect of per- 
sons or of numbers, to set forth the doctrine and to ad- 
minister the discipline. Nor may we forget that the 
Holy Spirit within the Church is constantly bearing 
witness, not to new theories or philosophies, but to 
Sacred Scripture, and is, therefore, guiding the Church 
certainly and unerringly into all truth. 

The doctrines concerning Christ were questioned 
principally by Arius, a priest of Alexandria, in Egypt, 
who, though censured, and finally excommunicated, by 
his bishop, became the cause of the most famous of all 
controversies. Briefly, Arius contended that, although 
the second Person of the blessed Trinity may be desig- 
nated " God" in some sense, he is not God in the same 
sense as is the first Person, or in any really true sense, 
because he is not eternal, and there was, therefore, a 
time when he did not exist A certain divinity was 
allowed to belong to him, but no deity. This view 
Arius supported by elaborate arguments, by vague 
statements of his opinions, and even by songs com- 
posed for the sailors and the laborers. He thus ap- 
pealed to various classes of the community and made 
a way for his tenets among the lower as well as among 
the higher members of society. He was at this time 
well on in years, tall, pale and thin, his appearance 
severe and gloomy, but his manner was soft and smooth 
and calculated to persuade and attract. Nor was he left 
alone in his opinions : multitudes accepted his teaching 
and adopted his errors. 

The controversy waxed so great and the feeling grew 
so bitter that in A. d. 325 the emperor summoned the 



156 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bishops to meet in general council. Diocesan and 
provincial assemblies were already common, but these 
have no oecumenical authority, nor may they properly 
decide upon questions affecting the doctrine of the 
Church. Such matters may be settled only by a synod 
of the entire episcopate, every bishop of Christendom 
being either present or entitled to be present. The 
synod is restricted to bishops because, as St. Ignatius 
testifies, the bishop is the centre of unity, the fountain- 
head of all authority and the highest earthly representa- 
tive of the spiritual power. To the bishops, individually 
and collectively, the guardianship of the faith is solemn- 
ly committed ; they are made depositaries of primitive 
truth and inheritors of apostolic tradition, and in them 
abides the authority to speak both for God and for the 
Church. Devout and learned men of inferior rank may, 
indeed, assist them in their work, both in the diocese 
and in the council, but the final responsibility rests upon 
the hierarchy, which has received the sacrament of order 
in all its fulness, and which collectively represents the 
college of the apostles. Six times only has the episco- 
pate thus been gathered together, and none but these 
six assemblies does the Church hold to be general 
councils. 

To Nicaea, the chief city of Bithynia, on the eastern 
shore of the lake Ascania and a little more than forty 
miles from Constantinople, in the summer of 325, three 
hundred prelates, mostly from dioceses within the east- 
ern part of the empire, went their way. One bishop 
came from Scythia, another from Persia, and from the 
West came Hosius of Cordova and Csecilian of Car- 
thage. Two priests, Vito and Vincent, represented the 



ECHOES FROM NICjEA. I $7 

aged Sylvester, bishop of Rome. Alexander of Alex- 
andria was accompanied by the saintly and learned 
Athanasius, then only a deacon, but already recog- 
nized as one of the ablest and most illustrious defend- 
ers of the faith. Few could doubt that he would one 
day sit in " the evangelical throne." So great was his 
renown, and so marked were his abilities, that he was 
permitted to address the assembled Fathers and to take 
part in the discussions. Readier, perhaps, than any 
was he to grasp the fulness of the question. By an 
intuitive perception he beheld the Redeemer in his 
totality, and he fought, not from loyalty to his supe- 
rior or from pure polemical partisanship or from mere 
ecclesiastical conservatism, but from a profound con- 
sciousness of truth. Small in stature, he was neverthe- 
less heroic in soul ; his face was radiant with intelligence 
as " the face of an angel," and his great learning and 
his wonderful eloquence excited alike the admiration of 
his friends and the hostility of his opponents. Among 
other remarkable men present were Eusebius of Csesarea 
and his namesake of Nicomedia, Eustathius of Antioch, 
Macarius of Jerusalem, Marcellus of Ancyra, Leontius 
of the Cappadocian Caesarea and Spyridon of Cyprus. 
Many of the inferior clergy, and even some heathen 
philosophers, were attracted to the place of assembly. 
With the latter were held conferences and disputes, and 
a few are said to have been converted. 

In the council and in the city the most violent excite- 
ment prevailed. While bishops discussed with vehe- 
mence the questions brought before them, elsewhere 
butchers and bakers debated the same subjects with 
scarcely less interest and virulence. So high was the 



158 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

feeling that when the prelates presented to Constantine 
memorials containing their mutual complaints and recrim- 
inations the emperor exhorted them to unity and burnt 
the documents without opening them — " lest," said he, 
" the contentions of the priests should become known 
to any one." The scenes of unseemly strife which 
appeared in this and similar councils indicate not only 
the supernaturalness of Christianity, in that out of such 
confusion truth escaped with its life, but also the unfin- 
ished organization of the Church. The fact was indeed 
evident that if the Church was to live and do her work 
in the world — for a time, at least, and until experience 
had brought about some degree of definiteness — differ- 
ing bishops must be brought into subjection to a 
supreme lord and contending dioceses made part of a 
strong and absolute system. The development of the 
papacy was the remedy for the Western Church ; the 
Eastern so readily passed into the fossil state that 
nothing human could help it. 

But, these imperfections notwithstanding, the council 
did good work, and work that was to last for all time. 
The angry words were but the foam cast up by the 
troubled tide of intense earnestness ; they marred the 
beauty of the assembled Church, but they did not 
affect its affirmations of truth. We need not trace out 
in detail the process by which the council reached its 
decision. It endeavored to ascertain what was the reve- 
lation of Holy Scripture, and what had been, since the 
days of the apostles, the teaching of the Church. The 
prelates were struck with horror and indignation at the 
assault made upon the faith, and with almost one voice 
declared that the Son was of the same substance with 



ECHOES FROM NICjEA. 1 59 

the Father — not of a similar, but of the same, actual 
and numerical substance. A creed was then formulated 
— that Creed which alone is oecumenical, and which the 
Greek Church reverences by embroidering it upon the 
robes of her bishops, and the Anglican Church by pla- 
cing it immediately after the Gospel in the Liturgy. In 
this symbol the holy catholic Church expresses its belief 
in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, with that and 
the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, necessarily 
the doctrine of the blessed Trinity. This faith rests not 
upon the Church's authority, but upon the infallible 
word of God. It is the truth of Scripture, and in 
Scripture alone is the catholic faith which to the sav- 
ing of the soul must be kept whole and undefined. In 
short, the Bible is God's message to the Church, and 
the Creed is the Church's answer to God. And now 

" the faith of the Trinity lies, 
Shrined for ever and ever, in those grand old words and wise, 
A gem in a beautiful setting. Still at matin-time 
The service of holy communion rings the ancient chime ; 
Wherever, in marvellous minster or village churches small, 
Men to the Man that is God out of their misery call, 
Swelled by the rapture of choirs or borne on the poor man's word, 
Still the glorious Nicene Confession unaltered is heard, 
Most like the song that the angels are singing around the throne, 
With their < Holy ! Holy ! Holy !' to the great Three in One." 

The anathemas which the council attached to the 
Creed have been removed, but that does not imply 
that the Creed is now of less importance and is not 
still binding on the consciences of Christians. " What 
God," says St. Athanasius, "has spoken through the 
Council of Nicaea remains for ever ;" and this, we may 



l6o READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

add, of necessity. For the Creed states facts which if 
true at one time are true throughout all time. Those 
facts are the guiding-posts of faith ; by them we find 
our way across the wilderness of thought to the haven 
of rest. If beyond our comprehension, they are within 
our observation ; for, be it remembered, " the catholic 
faith is this " — not that we apprehend, perceive or 
understand, but " that we worship, one God in trinity, 
and trinity in unity." 

Besides formulating the Creed, the council enacted 
twenty canons affecting the discipline of the Church. 
These are of varying value; some have been modified 
and some abrogated altogether. The principle underly- 
ing the whole code is thus expressed : " Let the ancient 
customs prevail." Hasty or premature baptism was 
forbidden ; a convert from heathenism, no matter how 
desirable an addition he might be to the Church, was 
to pass through a prolonged and thorough course of 
preparation before he was to receive that sacrament, 
much less before he was admitted to holy orders. Bap- 
tism could not be repeated, but the council held that a 
heretic who administered baptism with the right form, 
but not with the right faith, did not confer a valid bap- 
tism. Every province of the Church was ordered to 
hold two synods in each year — one before Lent, and the 
other about the time of late autumn. To the consecra- 
tion of a bishop the metropolitan and the bishops of the 
province should consent, and the rite should be per- 
formed by at least three bishops, acting not as indi- 
viduals, but as representatives of the entire episcopate. 
Bishops were not to be translated, nor were any of the 
clergy to remove themselves from the church to which 



ECHOES FROM NICJEA. l6l 

they belonged — an indication that with greater wealth and 
wider power had come in among the clergy a restless- 
ness and an ambition associated with worldly motives 
and tending to scandalous discord. The evil, however, 
was not stayed : a later council — that of Sardica — re- 
marked, with a touch of sarcasm, that no bishop had yet 
been found to aim at being transferred from a greater 
city to a lesser. A priest who wandered from his own 
diocese to seek a better charge elsewhere was to be de- 
barred from officiating until he had gone back to his 
original work and by repentance had come to a better 
mind. The clergy were also forbidden to lend their 
money upon usury, and any priest found guilty of base 
device or of receiving inordinate gain was to have his 
name struck off the canon. The presumption of dea- 
cons was severely reproved. They were charged no 
more to infringe upon the duties and the dignities of 
the presbyters, either in administering both elements in 
holy communion, or in receiving the blessed sacrament 
before their superiors, or in sitting within that part of 
the sanctuary which was appropriated to the bishops and 
the priests. The pride of deacons, however, was hard to 
subdue : Jerome says he saw a deacon giving his bless- 
ing to presbyters, and the Laodicene Council forbade a 
deacon to sit down where a priest was present, either in 
the church or out of it, unless bidden by him to do so. 
Decisions were also made as to the mode of filling up 
vacant sees, the status of persons excommunicate, the 
home-life of the clergy, the physical qualifications for 
ordination and the reconciliation of those who had con- 
cealed or abjured their faith to escape persecution. It 
was ordered that prayer on Sundays and during the fifty 
11 



1 62 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

days of Easter should be made standing, and it is im- 
plied that the custom of standing at the reception of the 
holy communion should continue; which custom still 
abides in the Greek Church and is observed by the cel- 
ebrant in the Latin Church. It was also understood 
that the festival of the resurrection of our Lord should 
always be commemorated upon the first day of the week, 
and never on the fourteenth day of the month Nisan. 
Throughout these enactments a strong desire is mani- 
fested to drive away from the Church errors of living 
and to bring about a closer uniformity of usage. They 
show that the Church had now to struggle against evils 
more insidious and more perilous than those of the age 
of persecution ; they further show that the Church was 
aware of her danger, and was honestly desirous to 
avert it. 

The decrees of the council were signed by all save two 
bishops, and, being assented to by the emperor, were im- 
mediately enforced. These bishops, the one of Ptolemais 
and the other of Marmarica, with Arius, were sentenced 
by Constantine to banishment. He denounced severe 
penalties against the party; he even condescended to 
pun upon the name of Arius and to ridicule his personal 
appearance, and he made it a capital offence to possess 
his writings. Three months later he deprived two more 
bishops who were supposed to sympathize with Arius. 
But the errors he condemned were not killed ; for years, 
in some form or other, the advocates of Arianism sought 
its propagation. The emperor changed his mind, and, 
as even trees bend according to the wind, his influence 
affected many prelates. With the turn of the tide whole 
provinces went over to heresy. Everywhere the truth 



ECHOES FROM NICMA. 1 63 

was imperilled; in many places, loudly .denied. In 
those days of apostasy the attempts to assemble another 
council of the Church to reverse the decisions of Nicsea 
were futile ; nor has any proof ever yet been given of 
the fallibility or the contradiction of an oecumenical gath- 
ering of the ecclesiastical princes. But the emperor, in 
336, commanded Alexander, bishop of Constantinople 
and a firm adherent of the Nicene faith, to receive Arius 
back again into the full communion of the Church. The 
bishop remonstrated, but the emperor insisted, and or- 
dered a solemn procession to be made from the palace to 
the church of the Apostles. The triumph of Arianism 
seemed almost complete, and the day next to the Sun- 
day appointed for this purpose the bishop spent in prayer 
that by the mercy of God before the hour of trial came 
either he or Arius might be removed from this life. The 
prayer was -answered. Toward the evening, as Arius 
and some of his friends were walking through the streets 
of the city, gayly and lightly talking of the approaching 
ceremonies, the heresiarch was taken with a sudden pain. 
In a few minutes he was dead. His friends said he was 
poisoned, and his opponents that God had miraculously 
interposed ; probably neither supposition was right, for 
he was eighty years of age and had been afflicted with 
a disease of long standing. Most likely the extreme ex- 
citement, the joy of a life's triumph, precipitated the end. 
However, the striking and awful coincidence made a 
strong impression upon the world ; nor did men forget 
that he who had denied the deity of Christ died out of 
the communion of the Church. 

The year after the council, Athanasius, the defender 
of the faith, was made bishop of Alexandria, and within 



164 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY'. 

a little while began those troubles of which Hooker says 
that " the Arians never suffered Athanasius, till the last 
hour of his life in this world, to enjoy the comfort of a 
peaceable day/' He sat in the throne of St. Mark from 
the age of thirty to that seventy-six. To quote again the 
author just mentioned, " this was the plain condition of 
those times : the whole world against Athanasius, and 
Athanasius against it; half a hundred years spent in 
doubtful trial which of the two in the end would pre- 
vail, the side which had all, or else the part which had 
no friend but God and death — the one a defender of 
his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles." 
Nothing was left undone by his adversaries to bring 
him to ruin ; he was accused of magical arts, of usurp- 
ing political power, of committing violence and sacri- 
lege, of murder, of resisting the secular authority, and 
of other crimes ; " the least whereof," observes Hooker, 
" being just, had bereaved him of estimation and credit 
with men while the world standeth." Four times he 
was driven into exile — once even to Treves, in the far 
West. On one occasion there was an anticipation of 
the famous scene in Canterbury — -fortunately, without 
its terrible tragedy. During a midnight service in 
February, 356, the church in which were assembled 
the archbishop and a large congregation was surround- 
ed by a body of police and soldiers under the leadership 
of an officer of state. The intention was to drive Athan- 
asius out of the city — possibly, to put a period to his 
life. When the archbishop heard the clamor of arms 
and the noise of the rabble, to use his own words, " I 
sat down on my throne and desired the deacon to read 
the psalm, and the people to respond ' For His mercy 



ECHOES FROM NICJEA. 1 65 

endureth for ever,' and then all to depart home." The 
psalm recited was the one hundred and thirty-sixth, 
beginning, " O give thanks unto the Lord ; for he is 
gracious ;" and hardly was it finished when the armed 
mob rushed in. In an instant the peace of the sanctu- 
ary was broken. The soldiers shouted fiercely, clashed 
their weapons, discharged their arrows and brandished 
their swords in the light of the church lamps. Many 
of the people were trampled down, and some were mor- 
tally wounded. Others cried to the archbishop to es- 
cape ; but, again using his own words, " I said I would 
not do so until they had all got away safe. So I stood 
up and called for prayer, and desired all to go out before 
me." Afterward he was carried away by his clergy, and 
succeeded in passing out of the peril without injury. 
Throughout all his troubles his own people and the 
hundred bishops who owned allegiance to the see of 
Alexandria stood loyal to him, and to his abilities, his 
manly and direct eloquence, his unbending steadiness 
of purpose, his tact in dealing with men, his activity, 
breadth of mind and foresight, under the divine Provi- 
dence is due the preservation of the Church both from 
heresy and from a creedless system, either of which prob- 
ably would have led to the abandonment of Christianity. 
His characteristic enthusiasm was illustrated in his flight 
to the desert shortly before the Easter of 363. He was met 
on his way by numbers of his adherents. At one place, 
seeing the banks of the Nile thronged by bishops, clergy 
and monks, he exclaimed, in the words of Isaiah, " Who 
are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their 
cotes ?" In the dark night he landed, and, mounting on 
an ass led by Theodore, the abbot and priest of Tabenne, 



l66 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

he pursued his way into the wilderness amid a vast body 
of monks bearing lanterns and torches and chanting 
psalms. The weirdness of the scene and the devotion 
of these adherents of the Nicene faith moved him deep- 
ly. " It is not we that are Fathers," he cried : " it is these 
men devoted to humility and obedience." He tarried 
among them for some time. When the day came for 
him to return to the city from which he had been driven, 
Theodore said, " Remember us in your prayers." His 
answer was simple and eloquent : " If I forget thee, O 
Jerusalem !" 

It was on Thursday, May 2, 373, that Athanasius 
the immortal, having waxed old in his work, tranquilly 
passed into his rest. By his struggles and endurance 
he had won many a crown; his life had been a con- 
tinual martyrdom ; he had spent his days continually 
" planting trees under which men of a later age might 
sit ;" and it is no extravagance which declares him the 
greatest among the saints and divines of the post-apos- 
tolic ages. The time was nigh at hand which should 
witness the complete triumph of those principles for 
which he had contended. The work of Diocletian and 
Constantine had ended in confusion, the apostate Julian 
had acknowledged that the Galilean had conquered, and 
the decline and decay of Rome went on unchecked, but 
against the blue sky and the clouds of heaven, on 
mountain-slope, in forest-wild, by river-bank and amid 
busy marts, from Nicomedia in the far East to the rock- 
bound coasts gray with Atlantic storms, stood the cross 
of Jesus reminding men of the God-Man by whose 
atoning blood the human race was saved, and by whose 
mercy the kingdom was opened to all believers. 



ECHOES EROM NICMA. 1 67 

In this century the Church passed through one of the 
most significant eras in her history. Now began a close 
alliance of the Church and the State, and, while the 
spiritual power tempered and modified the secular, the 
secular gave its support and imparted of its wealth and 
dignity to the spiritual. The clergy were freed from 
many liabilities and invested with many privileges. 
The bishops became princes of the empire and their 
patriarchs assumed a state little inferior to that of the 
imperial court. It is not surprising, therefore, that many 
sought the sacred ministry from unworthy motives, and 
that the incubus of ungodly prelates and worldly priests, 
with the splendor of their dress and equipage and the 
sumptuousness of their surroundings, weighed down the 
Church and marred the purity, earnestness and simpli- 
city of her spiritual life. And yet this prosperity had 
another and a nobler effect : it produced men who were 
as faithful in resisting the seductions of wealth and pow- 
er as the earlier confessors had been in refusing to bend 
before the pagan persecutor. Mighty champions of the 
faith came to the front besides those already mentioned 
— heroes such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, 
Didymus of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Epiphanius 
of Cyprus, Lactantius and St. Jerome. Lands and titles 
were given, churches built, minor orders in the ministry 
established and benevolent guilds organized. In Con- 
stantinople were banded the Copiatae or Fossarii, for the 
purpose of burying the dead ; in Alexandria, the Para- 
bolani or Venturers, for the purpose of visiting the sick. 
Divine service now became more elaborate and the acces- 
sories of worship more splendid. The clergy still mar- 
ried, though the tendency to celibacy was decided. The 



1 68 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

canon of Scripture was also determined — what writings 
were to be accepted as of inspired authority. Beautiful- 
ly says St. Chrysostom, " Christianity struck its roots in 
the books of the Old Testament ; it blossomed in the 
Gospels of the New." Deep was the reverence and 
unswerving the loyalty to the word of God. Nor 
need it be mentioned that as yet the bishop of Rome 
made no pretensions to that universal lordship over the 
Church which he afterward assumed. Four patriarch- 
ates, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, 
were recognized, each independent within itself and 
supreme within its own jurisdiction. 

The period furnishes us with an illustration of the 
growth of a spirit which in time led to much error of 
doctrine, and even to viciousness of life. About the 
year 327 the empress Helena, mother of Constantine, 
and now a Christian, as an act of penitence and sorrow 
for the murder of her grandson Crispus and her daugh- 
ter-in-law Festa, which Constantine in a fit of jealousy 
had ordered, determined to go on a pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land. Though nearly eighty years of age, she 
had the strength and spirit of middle life and the fulness 
of that reverent curiosity, common enough even now, for 
seeing remarkable places and sacred scenes. She made 
the journey to Palestine without let or hindrance. In 
Jerusalem she visited spots connected with the history 
of Christ and built several churches to his honor, but 
on her way home she died, and her body was received 
at Constantinople with great pomp. Out of this appar- 
ently simple visit to the Holy City was in later years creat- 
ed one of the most singular of ecclesiastical legends. 

The love of the human heart for relics is shown in the 



ECHOES FROM NIC^EA. 1 69 

tenderness with which the mother treasures the toys and 
the garments of her lost child, and in the respect which 
all men pay to things associated with a dear friend who 
has passed into the Unseen. When religion is the object 
of affection, then the reverence naturally turns to the per- 
sons and the places associated with its history, and soon 
after this time rumors began to run abroad that the cross 
on which the Saviour died had been discovered. St. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, whose catechetical lectures were 
delivered in 346-— he himself affirms, upon the very spot 
where Christ was crucified — alludes to this fact; St. 
Chrysostom, in 387, speaks of the anxiety felt by many 
to procure a piece of the sacred wood ; and, seven years 
later, Sulpicius Severus declares that on the mount of 
the Ascension the footsteps of Christ had" been dis- 
cerned, and reiterates that the three crosses of Calvary 
had been recovered. It did not take much time or much 
ingenuity to associate the empress Helena with this in- 
vention. Seventy years after her pilgrimage she was 
stated to have gone to the Holy City for the express 
purpose of finding the cross, and details, which grew 
with the ages, were given of the progress and success 
of her search. Legends are like lies : not only do they 
increase and multiply, but from ofttimes telling they 
actually come to be believed as truth. This story of 
the cross, repeated from one generation to another and 
supported by bits of wood carefully enclosed in caskets 
of gold adorned with priceless gems, was accepted for 
centuries not merely by the foolish and ignorant, but 
also by the holy and prudent. 

Passing over the details of the process, the story 
finally reached the following elaborate and astonishing 



170 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

development : Adam, when toiling in the wilderness, 
was seized with a severe headache, and to alleviate his 
sufferings he sent Seth to Paradise for some oil of mercy. 
Instead of this, the archangel Michael gave to Seth three 
seeds from the tree of life which grew in the midst of 
the garden of Eden; and when Adam died, Seth put 
these three seeds under his tongue. From the grave, 
fed and nourished by the body of Adam, the seeds 
sprang up into three good-sized saplings, and these 
saplings became the rods which Moses ever had about 
his bed, and with which he divided the Red Sea, made 
water to flow from the rock and sweetened the bitter 
wells of Marah. He afterward planted them in the land 
of Moab, where they continued to grow till an angel 
appeared in a dream to David and bade him fetch them 
to Jerusalem. On the way the rods healed the sick, 
cleansed a leper and turned three black men white. 
Nor was this all : David left them at night in the court- 
yard of his palace, and in the morning he found that 
they had taken root and become one tree. Around 
that tree he built a wall, and under its shadow he praised 
God and composed his psalms. When the temple was 
being built, Solomon had it cut down, and the artificers 
fashioned it into a plank ; but the plank would nowhere 
fit into the building, and it was therefore laid aside. 
Some time after, a devout woman happening to sit on 
the plank, her clothes caught fire, and* she made a 
prophecy ; but she was scourged to death, and Solomon 
made a foot-bridge of the plank. When the queen of 
Sheba visited the king, she preferred wading through 
the brook to walking over the holy wood, and as a con- 
sequence of her discernment of its nature the plank 



ECHOES FROM NICMA. \J\ 

was taken up, covered with gold and placed in the tem- 
ple. At the desecration of the temple the Jews buried 
the plank under what was afterward the Pool of Beth- 
esda, hence the healing virtues of that pool ; and 
when Christ was condemned to death, the plank was 
found floating on the water. The high priest had it 
made into a cross, on which the Saviour died; and 
thus, says the Legenda Aurea Sanctorum , whence come 
these particulars, " the crosse by which we been saved 
came of the tree by whiche we were dampned." The 
disciples immediately adored it, seeing that by contact 
with it the sick were healed and devils cast out; but 
the Jews, by way of annoyance, buried both it and 
those on which the thieves were crucified, so that they 
were lost sight of till St. Helena visited Jerusalem. She 
made inquiry of the Jews concerning the cross, but the 
only man who knew anything — one Judas — refused to 
divulge the secret ; whereupon she put him in a dry pit, 
without food or water, for seven days. On his release 
the earth was moved and a fume of great sweetness was 
felt ; so that Judas was converted, and diligently set to 
work to discover the crosses. After he had digged some 
twenty paces deep under the foundations of a ruined tem- 
ple he came to the three crosses, each in a state of good 
preservation ; but which was the cross of our Lord he 
knew not. This, however, was soon determined. A 
funeral was passing by ; the corpse was detained, and to 
it were applied the crosses. By two of them no effect 
was made, but at the touch of the third the dead arose. 
At this the devil was furious, Judas was baptized and 
Helena rejoiced. The empress divided the cross ; one 
part she left at Jerusalem, and the rest she sent to Con- 



I ?2 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

stantinople. And the sacred wood, as the chroniclers 
tell us, being in itself miraculous, like the loaves and 
fishes in the wilderness, notwithstanding its constant 
distribution, did not diminish. Soon it was scattered 
over all the earth, and in every place it wrought won- 
ders. The nails thereof were set in the emperor's armor; 
hence his great success in battle. Once, when being 
carried across the sea, a storm arose, insomuch that 
death seemed imminent; but the moment one of the 
nails was cast in the foaming waters the winds and 
waves were stilled, and the ship was saved. Nor did 
men fail to point out that the cross was made of the 
wood of the aspen tree, whose leaves still tremble at 
the awful use the tree was put to. Some said that the 
cross had been erected over the tomb of the first man, 
and that when the sacred blood was spilt it fell upon the 
skull of Adam, and also split the rock of Calvary. A 
quantity of the gore was caught in the Holy Graal by 
Joseph of Arimathea. 

Curious as this legend is, the heaps of fables which 
cluster around the scattered bits of the cross are more 
curious still, but into that wide sea of ingenuity and 
credulity we may not enter. It need not be supposed 
that everybody believed such stories ; if some accepted 
them as undeniable verities, others regarded them as 
pleasant imaginations. We smile at the simplicity and 
brush the legendary dust aside, and yet we may weigh 
well two considerations. First, the moral which under- 
lies this story of the cross. The death of Jesus Christ 
is the highest and most lustrous manifestation of the 
love of God ; that love is eternal, and, though lost sight 
of for the moment, is again and again recovered. It 



ECHOES FROM N1C&A. 1 73 

passes from Eden through the ages to Calvary, and 
from Calvary throughout the whole world. It is undi- 
minishable and everywhere works marvellous wonders. 
And secondly, it was from the very faith in Jesus Christ 
that such reverence sprang for things associated with 
him. Had men not loved him, they had no more cared 
to invent and to accept stories concerning him than have 
we concerning Confucius. They erred — true : 

" To err is human, to forgive divine," 

and we may trust that He to whom every heart is 
known has judged them more righteously than it is 
possible for us to do. 



CHAPTER VI. 

j&t JWartin of Cours, 

Among those who have had the name of Martin were 
five popes, the first of whom was canonized and the last 
of whom not only concluded the great papal schism, but 
also vigorously opposed the English act of praemunire — 
the " execrable statute," as he called it. In the four- 
teenth century a prince of Sicily and his father the 
king of Arragon, and in the sixth century a bishop of 
Portugal — he of Braga — were likewise so named. But 
the Alpha-Martinorum, the one after whom these and 
others were called, is he of Tours — soldier, monk, 
bishop and saint. He has had a popularity throughout 
the ages. To him in all parts of Christendom have 
churches been dedicated ; legend has been unusually 
busy and daring with him; and though he contributed 
nothing to the theological knowledge of the Church, 
yet he is a good representative of the fourth century. 
He was born about the year 316 at Sabaria, in Pannonia, 
one of the frontier provinces of the Empire, and now 
part of the kingdom of Hungary. The legion in 
which his father rose to the rank of a military tribune 
was for some years stationed in the neighborhood of 
Pavia, not far from Milan. Here Martin received his 
early education, and, though both his parents were 
pagan, he manifested from the first a desire to embrace 

174 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 75 

Christianity. So strong was this wish that at the age 
often years Martin violated the "commandment with 
promise " and fled from home to become a catechumen. 
He spent some years in wandering about from church to 
church and from monastery to monastery, a wilful little 
vagabond even though he sought for baptism. Later 
on his father discovered his hiding-place, and, bringing 
to bear an imperial decree which ordered the sons of 
veterans to serve in the army, he compelled the runa- 
way postulant to adopt the profession of a soldier. 

The discipline was needed for a youth of fifteen, such 
as Martin now was. Among other places, he served in 
Lombardy and in the North of Gaul ; for how long a 
time, it is difficult to say. About 334 he received bap- 
tism, his innocent life, in spite of the temptations to 
which he was exposed, winning for him the admiration 
of his comrades. Gradually the conviction came to him 
that for the Christian warfare was unlawful. He asked 
permission to leave the army, and was in return taunted 
with cowardice. A battle was then pending, and Mar- 
tin offered, unarmed and protected only with the sign 
of the cross, to stand in the front rank and to pierce 
the legions of the enemy. The commander took him 
at his word, but the foe sued for peace, and Martin was 
discharged. His military career over, he went to the 
learned and famous Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, and 
after refusing the diaconate was by him ordained to the 
minor order of exorcist. This must have been after 
353, in which year Hilary was made bishop; but the 
chronology of this period of his life is hopelessly con- 
fused. The ability and aptitude of the converted soldier 
was considerable ; for when, in the enthusiasm of his 



176 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

soul, he determined to return to his native land and 
persuade his parents to embrace the faith, Hilary pas- 
sionately implored him to come back again. Not his 
learning, but his all-conquering faith and dauntless cour- 
age, gave him that influence which swayed men's souls. 
The visit to Pannonia resulted in the conversion of his 
mother — a memorable reversion of the relationship of 
Monica and Augustine, and of Anthusa and Chrys- 
ostom. 

Sulpicius Severus, his only biographer, says that dur- 
ing this journey St. Martin had presentiments of coming 
danger; which, if true, would go to support Words- 
worth's opinion — found faulty in most cases — that such 
premonitions should be heeded. The good man, how- 
ever, took no notice of them, and, losing his way 
among the Alps, fell in the hands of robbers. They 
threatened his life, and only by the interference of one 
of the thieves was he saved from the blow of an axe 
brandished over his head. He was bound and given 
over to the captain as his special booty. In a secluded 
place the bandit asked him, " What art thou ?" The 
fearless answer came : " I am a Christian." — " Art thou 
not afraid ?" retorted the captain. — " I never felt more 
secure," replied Martin ; " the mercy of the Divine will 
supply grace for my trial." He then expressed his sor- 
row for his captor because the life of robbery put him 
beyond the salvation of Christ. The faithful preaching 
of the gospel resulted in a conversion ; the robber set 
the captive free, and in after-years himself told the 
story. Should it be remembered that a similar tradition 
is told of St. John the Evangelist, and is by no means 
of unfrequent occurrence in hagiological pages, it should 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 77 

also be kept in mind that coincidences do not necessa- 
rily imply invention. No one doubts the story of Moses 
set in the ark of bulrushes on the banks of the Nile be- 
cause Perseus and his mother Danae were launched in 
a boat on the sea, and because Romulus and Remus 
were exposed to the fury of the Tiber. One's faith is 
not moved even though more than a thousand years be- 
fore the days of the great Hebrew leader the mother of 
Sargon, according to Professor Sayce, "brought forth 
her first-born ' in a secret place ' by the side of the 
Euphrates and placed him in a basket of rushes, which 
she daubed with bitumen and entrusted to the waters of 
the river." The little waif was saved, and in time be- 
came the ruler of the black-headed race of Accad and 
the founder of the realm of Babylonia. 

Martin was soon called upon both to vindicate and to 
suffer for the orthodox faith. In an age of intellectual 
unrest he remained settled in mind and determined at 
heart, clinging, with the tenacity of a limpet on a sea- 
washed rock, to the doctrines set forth in the Nicene 
Creed. But at this time Arianism was in the ascend- 
ency, and was especially strong in Illyricum, where 
Martin began his championship. Almost alone he 
wrought in this stronghold of heresy, preaching and 
disputing, until finally he was publicly scourged and 
driven from the country. Hilary was also banished 
from Poictiers, and Martin, having no other friend in 
Gaul, went to Italy. He found a retreat at Milan, but 
persecution set so hard upon him that he was obliged to 
flee to the little island of Gallinaria, off the coast of the 
Riviera. Here he accidentally poisoned himself by eat- 
ing hellebore, and so remarkable was his recovery from 
12 



178 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the consequent near approach of death that his biogra- 
pher regards it as a signal miracle. In 360 the tide 
turned, and he was able to leave his refuge and go back 
to his old friend Hilary, who was once more in the see 
of Poictiers. For eleven years he labored near him 
earnestly and successfully, till in 371 he was made 
bishop of Tours, which office he discharged with 
efficiency until 397, when he died. 

The character of the man may be illustrated by cer- 
tain features and events of his life. A legend illustrat- 
ing his charity is shown in painted window and sculp- 
tured figure in thousands of buildings throughout Chris- 
tendom. Before his baptism, when a soldier at Amiens, 
one winter day he saw a naked beggar perishing from 
cold at the gate of the city. Having no money, he took 
his sword and cut in twain his cloak ; one half he 
wrapped around the shivering body of the destitute 
man. The act, neither extraordinary nor unnatural, has 
obtained extravagant celebrity. The cloak is said to 
have been long and miraculously preserved as one of 
the holiest and most valued relics of France. In times 
of war it was carried before the host, and in times of 
peace was kept in a sanctuary. It is also stated that 
etymologically our words " chapel " and " chaplain " are 
derived from that cloak, the former denoting the place 
where, and the latter the person by whom, it was kept. 
Nor did the deed of the soldier-saint go unrewarded. 
Little thought of at the moment, that night, in his 
sleep, Martin saw heaven with its bright and wonderful 
glories. He beheld the angels clustering around the 
throne, and he heard the Lord Jesus telling how Mar- 
tin, though only a catechumen, had ministered to his 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 79 

wants and covered his nakedness. Then Martin knew 
that he had done a deed not merely to a beggar, but to 
Christ, and the knowledge both gave him joy and has- 
tened the day of his baptism. 

History gives a less legendary illustration of Martin's 
Christian love. In the year 385 certain heretics were 
on trial in the imperial city of Treves. They had ap- 
pealed from the ecclesiastical to the civil authority, and 
before the emperor Maximus, who by rebellion and mur- 
der had made his way to the throne, they pleaded for jus- 
tice. Their opponents clamored for their blood. The 
torture and the prison were not enough : death alone 
could expiate for errors in religion. Then St. Martin 
appeared as the friend of the friendless and sought for 
mercy from the merciless. He interceded with the 
emperor; he begged the accusers to withdraw their 
charges. Excommunication, and not death, said he, 
should be the penalty for heresy. His anxiety to save 
them drew upon himself the- accusation of heretic, but 
he cared not. He went farther : he denied the empe- 
ror's authority to judge in ecclesiastical matters. His 
persuasions and his appeals so far prevailed that while 
he remained in the city the sword of the headsman was 
stayed, and Maximus promised that no blood should be 
shed. Martin departed to his home satisfied and rejoic- 
ing ; but when the intercessor was away, the enemies of 
the heretics convinced the emperor of the enormity of 
their crime and induced him to sentence seven persons 
to torture and to death. Thus the first Christian blood 
was shed at a Christian bidding. Henceforth Martin 
refused to communicate with those who had advised 
the emperor to the deed, and foretold the emperor's 



I 80 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

overthrow; which event happened not long afterward. 
The man who pleaded so earnestly for the upholders of 
a heresy he vehemently condemned is worthy of honor. 
Giving his cloak to a beggar was little compared to his 
giving his voice and his influence for an enemy. 

Moreover, this charity shone in a pure and obedient 
life. Christianity had not then affected society as it has 
since. Few were able at once to cast off the ways and 
the vices of the paganism in which they had been 
brought up. With the masses taking on Christ did 
not immediately change all things. Religion should 
work as leaven, but in the fourth century, so far as 
remote parts of the empire were concerned, it had only 
begun to work. Hence, as we have already seen, for 
one then to live unblamably and spotlessly there ap- 
peared no alternative but the solitary life. Separate 
from the world and associated only with men of like 
mind and aim, the way was made easier for the soul 
to obtain visions of Go4and to secure virtue. Of this 
form of devotion St. Martin was an earnest advocate. 
He loved the wilderness and taught others to value its 
restfulness and peace. To him it was a Sinai — a place 
where God spoke, and beyond which lay an eternal and 
delightsome Canaan. So great was his influence that 
he may be said to have established monasticism in Gaul. 
The discipline and the duties which he ordained were 
severe, though the enthusiast probably thought them 
pleasant. The worship of God, the reading and study 
of the divine word, the watching for the coming of the 
Son of man, the practice of self-denial and brotherly 
kindness and the renunciation of the pleasures and 
gains of the world were things peculiarly attractive to 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 151 

warm and pious souls. Touched by appeal and exam- 
ple, rich men relinquished their wealth, kings gave up 
their crowns, statesmen laid down the reins of power 
and the young abandoned the gayeties of society and 
sought to find God. That which St. Martin taught he 
also practised. He was an ascetic of ascetics, wearing 
the rough garb, living upon the coarse food and watch- 
ing the weary watches prescribed for his followers. In 
austerities he delighted ; in the sanctuary and the cell 
he found his paradise. When forced to mingle with 
people of the world, his grace, purity and honor illu- 
mined his person, and men saw in his face a glory like 
that which Moses had when for forty days he had been 
alone in the mount with Jehovah. 

Great was the reluctance with which Martin gave up 
his seclusion for the episcopate. To be a recluse was 
the dream of his life, but the Church could not spare 
such as he. The fame of his saintliness spread far and 
wide. The wife of the emperor Maximus publicly and 
enthusiastically spoke of it in his presence, and received 
a severe rebuke from him in consequence. Maximus 
himself sought, but in vain, to induce him to overlook 
the crimes which stained the imperial purple. Miracles 
and revelations were freely ascribed to him. Number- 
less stories were told of things he had done — how he 
had healed the sick, raised the dead, confounded the 
adversaries of the faith and thwarted the devil. At one 
time, before a number of heathen, he saved himself from 
a tree which in falling threatened to crush him. On an- 
other occasion, visiting a chapel built to the memory of 
a martyr, it was revealed to him that the people were 
ignorantly honoring one who had lived a violent and 



1 82 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

wicked life and for robbery had been put to death; 
whereupon he forced the evil one to rise from his grave 
and acknowledge his crime. Truth and falsehood are 
not distinguishable in such legends ; but if inventions, 
they at least mark the high estimation set upon St. Mar- 
tin. Certainly his heroic virtue and his chaste sim- 
plicity fascinated every beholder and drew toward him 
the eye of Christendom. When the people of Tours 
proceeded to elect a bishop for their city, many deter- 
mined to set the saintly hermit upon the episcopal 
throne. Some, judging him by his sordid vestments 
and unkempt hair, thought him simple and unworthy, 
but on the day of the election, as a priest read before 
the crowded congregation the words of the psalm, " Out 
of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast wrought 
praise," the assembly at once applied them to the child- 
like Martin, and with shouts of acclamation declared 
him to be their bishop. He was duly consecrated, and 
threw himself into his new work with headstrong energy 
and reckless determination. His zeal, indeed, seemed im- 
perishable. He began his labors in Gaul when through- 
out the country-parts heathenism was yet prevalent and 
vigorous. Multitudes in the regions around Poictiers 
and Tours clung to the old worship, and everywhere 
temples and priests were numerous. Against them he 
raised the standard of the cross, and for years toiled and 
labored, in season and out of season struggling for the 
success of the gospel. No discouragements daunted 
him, no promises beguiled him. His sermons had the 
eloquence of deathless earnestness and unchanging faith, 
and his life by its constancy and love was as the mag- 
net in its attracting power, and as a richly-perfumed 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 83 

flower in its delightful fragrance and subtile influence. 
He watched and worked and waited; by and by the 
shadows began to disperse. Then came the burst 
of light. The temples were overthrown ; the idols 
were destroyed ; the people turned to God ; the land 
was bright with the glory of Christ; and, instead of 
the cry of sacrifice and the shout of superstition, sacred 
hymn and solemn prayer arose from a penitent people 
and like clouds of incense rolled heavenward. To many 
a desolate home and weary soul came the gentleness and 
{he truth of the new religion, and in the cross of Jesus 
men saw the beauty of love and the grandeur of grace. 
Moreover, they learned to value more truly him who 
had helped them to this happy consummation, and 
whom posterity has honored with the title of "Apostle 
of the Gauls." 

In an age when the faith and the worship of the 
Church were passing through a formative crisis and 
receiving their lasting character, St. Martin, 'with all the 
enthusiasm of his ardent temperament, wrought for 
those expressions of truth and practices of ritual which 
eventually obtained authority in Christendom. Chari- 
table toward all men, he yet denounced error wherever 
it presented itself. He felt that heresy was the fruitful 
source of viciousness of life and involved its victims in 
irretrievable ruin. Before them he saw the fires, not 
of an inquisition, but of an eternal Tartarus, and, like 
Athanasius and Ambrose, he would pluck misguided 
souls as brands from the burning. Nor was he less 
earnest for the elaboration of divine service. The tem- 
ple below should be a type of the temple above. The 
place in which God met his people should be worthy, 



1 84 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

so far as man could make it, of so great dignity, and 
the King's daughter should be all glorious within. 
Music and art in every form should be there — all that 
could appeal through the senses to the soul, stirring it to 
devotion and bringing in captivity to Christ every power 
and quality. He was also one of the first to enter into 
the controversy concerning the mutual relations of 
Church and State. Interests so close and so intermin- 
gled are at all times difficult to distinguish, and none 
can clearly define, and much less practically observe, 
the limits of the secular and spiritual realms. St. Mar- 
tin was ready to render unto Caesar the things which 
were Caesar's, but he was not willing that Caesar should 
interfere with the things of God. He maintained that 
the civil power had no right or authority to touch eccle- 
siastical matters. Without considering consequences, 
or even the logical conclusions of his theory, he upheld 
the dignity of the Church and pressed its rights and 
privileges to the utmost tension. Religion should be 
socially and spiritually supreme, and the gospel should 
influence the nation not merely in faith and morals, but 
in all that concerned man. The decline of the Roman 
authority in Gaul gave the advantage to the Church ; 
upon the ruins and out of the materials of the old 
system arose in power and splendor the new and more 
lasting fabric. Obstacles, of course, stood in the way, 
but St. Martin turned not aside from his purpose. Not 
even ghostly foes moved him. When Satan represented 
himself to be Christ, the discreet and discerning bishop 
told him that he would not adore unless he saw in him 
the marks and the wounds of the cross. 

Such virtues which adorned Martin's life and such 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 85 

successes which awaited his efforts could not fail to 
secure for him the esteem of his contemporaries. Great 
as this was before his consecration, it increased much 
more afterward. Everywhere he was known as the 
defender of the faith and the friend of the faithless. 
Faults he had, but those graces which are deserving 
of imitation and which made his character outshone 
all such. The position he held enabled him to do 
things impossible to other men. Once, at an imperial 
banquet, the emperor ordered the attendant to take the 
wine which was offered to him first to Martin ; the 
bishop, having drunk of it, handed the goblet to the 
priest who was acting as his attendant chaplain. Max- 
imus expected that he would have had the satisfaction 
of receiving the vessel from the hands of his exalted 
guest, but Martin held the priest to be next in dignity 
to himself and the wearer of the surplice greater than 
the man clothed in purple. His action was loudly ap- 
proved by the emperor and his guests. On another 
occasion the empress with her own hands prepared a 
repast for the bishop and waited upon him as a servant. 
At the conclusion of the meal she gathered the crumbs 
and fragments as a feast for her own consumption. 
Nothing could more clearly show the reverence which 
was yielded to Martin both as a man of worth and as 
a minister of the Lord of all power. 

The end came when Martin had served in his bish- 
opric for more than a quarter of a century, and had 
passed the eightieth year of his age. The death was 
as triumphant as had been the life. Loving friends 
watched beside him as he passed from earth to heaven. 
They besought him to suffer them to lay him upon 



1 86 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

straw. " Nay, my sons," he replied ; " it becomes a 
Christian to die on ashes." They entreated him not 
to leave them as sheep in the midst of wolves. He 
wept ; then he said, " Good Lord, if I be necessary for 
thy people to do good unto them, I will refuse no labor, 
but else, for mine own self, I beseech thee to take my 
soul." As long as he had strength he comforted his 
weeping brethren, and with his eyes turned intently 
heavenward he ceased not to pray till his waiting soul 
was received up and he beheld the Beatific Vision. 

St. Martin died at Candes, and was buried there. 
Two thousand monks followed him to the grave, and 
ere long miracles were reported to have been wrought 
at his tomb. In that lowly grave the remains of the 
bishop rested from the year 397 to the year 473. Then 
the people of Tours, having built a large and noble 
cathedral in their city, with great pomp and exultation 
removed thereto the ashes of St. Martin. As the elev- 
enth day of November had been set apart in the eccle- 
siastical year for the commemoration of his death, so 
now the fourth day of July was appointed to be observed 
in memory of this translation ; both days still remain in 
the Anglican calendar. Soon wealth came pouring into 
the church and the abbey which were built in his honor. 
His shrine became the most revered and the richest of 
all the shrines of Gaul. In the sanctuary of " the bishop 
of incomprehensible merit," as St. Thomas of Canterbury 
calls him, wonders were common and blessings abundant. 
Pilgrimages were made to the sacred place, and admiring 
multitudes heard the marvellous legends and saw the 
holy relics. Abroad his fame was scarcely less great. 
The church of San Martino in Monte, at Rome, was 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 87 

built within a century of his death, and the oldest church 
in England, the walls of which are even now standing — 
one which was built before St. Augustine preached in 
Canterbury — is dedicated to his memory. William, who 
had won the crown of the Confessor of England by the 
aid of the apostle of the Gauls, gave the same title to 
the abbey which he built on the field of Senlac. London 
has seven churches dedicated in like manner, and twenty 
times as many more are scattered throughout England. 
Ninian, who visited Martin in 394, commemorated him 
in the first stone church erected in Scotland, that of the 
Candida Casa — the " White House " — on the promon- 
tory of Whithern or Rosnat. The new times and the 
new lands have not been so free in their recognition of 
the saint, but the name occurs here and there both in 
America and in Australia, and one of the prettiest 
churches on this continent is that of St. Martin in 
Montreal, the white city on the St. Lawrence. Towns, 
families and children were named after him ; Luther was 
christened " Martin " because he was born late on the 
eve of St. Martin's day — a fact which has made the 
name highly unpopular in Roman Catholic countries 
ever since. A gentle summer bird also bears his name 
and lives under his protection ; taught by past ages to 
revere the saint, the rudest peasant has learned not to 
molest the martin. The short season of fine weather 
which sometimes happens in the beginning of Novem- 
ber — the " latter spring," the summer of St. Luke or 
of All Hallows or of the Indian — is also called St. 
Martin's little summer ; so Joan of Arc exclaimed : 

" This night the siege assuredly I'll raise : 
Expect St. Martin's summer, halcyon days." 



1 88 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

It so happened that the eleventh of November was in 
pagan times a great festival, and perhaps it was fitting 
that he who had driven the heathen out of Gaul should 
be honored by receiving a day once dedicated to a 
heathen deity. In this month the Athenians observed 
the Anthesteria in honor of Bacchus, and the first day 
of the feast, the eleventh day of the month, they called 
the ntdoiyta because then they tapped their barrels; 
others called it the day of good cheer. The Roman 
Vinalia corresponded thereto, and later, in the English 
Martilmasse, good Christian souls observed the social 
elements of the season with a vim and a delight by no 
means second to those of Greeks or Romans. St. Mar- 
tin, having taken the place of Bacchus, became the 
patron saint of the lovers of the barley and the vine. 
His day continued to be associated with merrymaking 
and good cheer. Beer flowed freely in the gatherings 
of friends before the " crackling brake ;" on the table 
was set -the goose, roasted and smoking hot, in memory 
of St. Martin, when the people wanted to make him 
bishop of Tours, having been discovered by the cack- 
ling of that noble bird, though it is to be feared that 
the guests around the board thought no more of saints 
or of bishops than they did of the sibilant flock that 
once saved Rome. The beef and the bacon that should 
serve for the coming winter were now prepared ; and as 
surely as the season brought death to the fatted pig and 
to the aged cow, so the ancients said of the rogue or the 
evil-doer who for long escaped punishment, " Martinmas 
will come in time." On such a day there was no stint 
— the only day in the year when the country-folk of 
mediaeval England ate fresh beef. In their boundless 



ST MARTIN OF TOURS. iSg 

freedom they feared nothing: St. Martin saved from 
sudden death, so that apoplexy was powerless then, 
and he even saved from small-pox, so that none need 
be afraid of infection. 

Perhaps St. Martin might have fared better had he 
not been intimately associated either with English fes- 
tivity or with Scotch quarter-day. He was himself one 
of the most abstemious of men, and no more cared for 
feasting and drinking than an impecunious tenant cares 
for paying his rent. However, otherwise he was more 
unquestionably honored. The Church gave him two 
days of celebration in the year — both simple feasts cum 
rcgimine Chari, one of them with an octave, and there- 
fore as good as John of Beverley or Sylvester of Rome 
received, and much better than those which fell to the 
lot of Chrysogone, Cyprian or Cuthberga. In time he 
became the patron saint of Norway and shared with St. 
Denys the honor of France. He is said to have been 
the first saint-confessor to whom prayers were offered ; 
his name appears in the earliest of litanies, and cities 
and princes placed themselves and their enterprises un- 
der his protection. It became even popular to claim 
relationship to him ; St. Patrick is said not only to have 
been his pupil, but also to have been the son of his 
sister Conkessa. Among the honorary lay-canons of 
the abbey built to his memory near Tours were kings, 
princes and earls — among them, the sovereigns of 
France, the Douglases of Scotland and the counts 
of Flanders and Angouleme. 

St. Martin was reputed to be as tenacious of his rights 
when a saint as he had been when a bishop. He would 
help readily enough in the time of need, but he was the 



I9O READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

last in heaven to be defrauded of what belonged to him. 
When Hlodwig was about to set out on his expedition 
against the Goths, he gave a horse to the saint ; on his 
return he wished to redeem his gift, and made an offer 
of a hundred shillings. The horse would not stir ; 
another hundred, and the horse came away. So, when 
William the Conqueror delayed the building of the 
abbey he had vowed, he was constantly reminded of 
the risk he was running. At last the walls arose on 
the bleak, waterless hills, a region by no means approved 
of by the brethren of St. Martin from the mother-abbey 
at Tours — or, rather, at Marmontier — but the high altar 
rested on the spot where Harold Godwin's standard- 
bearer had stood on the day when the Norman duke 
won his " crowning mercy," and both William and St. 
Martin were satisfied. 

Nor was the beatified bishop without means of secur- 
ing his privileges. When the Danes overran the region 
of Touraine, the body of St. Martin was taken by the 
clergy of his church from Tours to Auxerre. There it 
was placed in the sanctuary of St. German, the famous 
apostle of orthodoxy to the British Church in the days 
of the Pelagian heresy. The people thronged to the 
church, and in gratitude for the cures wrought upon 
them contributed freely. A dispute arose between the 
monks of Tours and the monks of Auxerre about the 
division of the money, both sides strongly advocating 
the claims of their respective patrons. At last, says 
William of Malmesbury, " to solve this knotty doubt a 
leprous person was sought and placed, nearly at the last 
gasp, wasted to a skeleton and already dead, as it were, 
in a living carcase, between the bodies of the two saints. 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. I9I 

All human watch was prohibited for the whole night; 
the glory of Martin alone was vigilant, for the next day 
the skin of the man on his side appeared clear, while on 
that of German it was discolored with its customary de- 
formity. And, that they might not attribute the miracle 
to chance, they turned the yet-diseased side to Martin. 
As soon as the morning began to dawn the man was 
found by the hastening attendants with his skin smooth, 
perfectly cured, declaring the kind condescension of the 
resident patron, who yielded to the honor of such a wel- 
come stranger." This delicate way of smoothing the 
wounded feelings of the brethren of Auxerre reflects as 
great credit upon their visitors from Tours as the mira- 
cle itself does upon St. Martin. Pity indeed it was that 
leprosy had not been blotted out by such means ! 

All the mediaeval saints cured this disease — St. Thomas 
of Canterbury, for instance, was unequalled in his num- 
ber of miracles — and yet leprosy mightily prevailed. 
He went far beyond St. Martin in some respects. One 
night, as a poor ignorant leper lay fast asleep, the martyr 
of Canterbury came to him and said, " Gimpe, dormis ?" 
and poor Gimp replied : " I have slept, but now thou 
hast disturbed me. Who art thou ?" He who tells the 
story had not read of the prince of Denmark, so he 
makes the martyr answer : " I am Thomas, archbishop 
of Canterbury. Dost thou know Jordan the son of 
Eisulf ?" Yes, Gimp knows him ; and then the disturber 
of his peace sends a message by Gimp to that naughty 
Jordan, who, it seems, had had a son restored to life by 
St. Thomas, and had forthwith, in the joy and gratitude of 
his soul, vowed a pilgrimage to the shrine of the great 
saint; which vow, he, Jordan of Plumstead, in Nor- 



I92 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

folk, being a man like unto most men, had neglected. 
Gimp did not get cured, though he contrived to convey 
the message, and though Jordan and his wife when they 
went to Canterbury were abundantly rewarded ; but he 
had been spoken to by St. Thomas, and that was worth 
more than healing. 

St. Martin wrought miracles in his lifetime, but he 
never did anything like that, though his name was pow- 
erful as was that of St. Thomas to help others. Bene- 
dict of Peterborough says that when some furious dogs 
were about to bite him he remembered that one had 
once closed the mouths of angry hounds by using the 
name of St. Martin ; he thought the English martyr 
was as good as the French confessor, so he cried aloud 
to the dogs : " In nomine beati Thomae, obmutescite." 
They immediately obeyed. We link the names of Mar- 
tin and Thomas together because there seems to have 
been an almost nervous wish on the part of the writers 
of the miracles of the latter to liken him to the saint of 
Tours, and to make credible the wonders of the one by 
pointing out the unquestionable wonders of the other — 
an evidence, again, to the position St. Martin held in 
men's esteem. 

Superstition was strong, but superstition testifies to 
renown and to worth. Had St. Martin been without 
merit, he could scarcely have become so great an object 
of regard. Stripped of the legends which a credulous 
age invented, the life stands out with a lustre which 
time has not altogether dimmed. As one who loved 
and labored for the Church of God, by his zeal driving 
from the fold erroneous doctrines and by his life exhibit- 
ing the power of the gospel, he is worthy of being had 



ST. MARTIN OF TOURS. 1 93 

in remembrance. Many hands have been used in build- 
ing the walls of Jerusalem, but few hands were busier or 
did better work than those of the soldier, hermit, mis- 
sionary and bishop S. Martinus Turonensis. 
13 



CHAPTER VII. 

§bt JWontca anir g>t Augustine. 

For many centuries St. Monica has been regarded as 
one of the noblest types of womanly saintliness which 
the religion of Jesus Christ has produced. Her ele- 
vated, tender and devoted piety, her patient prayerful- 
ness, her affectionate and beautiful enthusiasm, her 
gentleness and consistency of character, give to her a 
position in the first rank of noble and godly matrons 
and cast upon her a glory which time has not tarnished. 
The story of her life belongs to the fourth century and 
to Northern Africa. 

A thousand years before the Christian era the long 
strip of coast-line running from the Altars of Philainoi 
westward beyond the Pillars of Heracles was dotted 
with colonies founded by the adventurous Phoenicians. 
In the course of time the country became the America 
of the old world, with the famous Carthage as its New 
York, and to its shores came ships laden with immigrants 
and with stores of commerce from Tyre and Sidon and 
elsewhere. A nation was developed, and for nearly half 
a millennium wealth and power belonged to this maritime 
and warlike people ; then began the struggle with Rome, 
ending, after generations of strife, in the absorption of 
North Africa in the all-conquering Roman empire. It 

194 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. I95 

was a subject-province of that empire in St. Monica's 
time ; its glories had for ever passed away, its civiliza- 
tion and commerce were destroyed and the noble build- 
ings of its once fair and mighty capital were thrown 
down. 

It is not certain to what race Monica belonged — 
whether to the new Latin invaders or to the ancient 
Phoenician colonists ; probably the latter, if the fact 
that her name is scarcely of Latin etymology goes for 
anything. She was born in 331 in Numidia, the mod- 
ern Algiers — the land of the wanderers, as the aborigi- 
nals had been called in earlier days. Christianity was 
establishing itself in the province, and Monica — a mem- 
ber of a Christian family and brought up by an aged 
and devout nurse — was among its most ardent adhe- 
rents and an eager student of holy Scripture. She 
became the wife of one named Patricius, a man of con- 
siderable importance and of indifferent circumstances 
in Thagaste, ^ town about a hundred and fifty miles 
from Carthage. He was a heathen, churlish, impatient, 
worldly, sensual and addicted to glaring vices. His 
loose habits were the cause of great pain to the tender- 
hearted Monica, but, with a love and grace not, indeed, 
rare in such as she, she endured his unkindness, his 
cruel words, his reproaches against her religion, and even 
his brutishness, determined, if it were possible, to win 
him to the truth. She concealed or excused his wrong- 
doings ; she refrained from reproaching or upbraiding 
him ; she gave him civility for rudeness and virtue for 
vice, and shined in her house as a mirror of moral love- 
liness. The life was hard and she not twenty years old, 
but her faith in the power of Christ was mighty, and 



I96 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

before the throne of that Christ she pleaded and prayed 
both for her wayward husband that he might be con- 
verted and for herself that she might persevere unto 
the end. 

In the autumn of the year 354 was born unto the 
ill-mated couple the child who afterward became the 
immortal St. Augustine. He inherited from his parents 
the passionate sensibility of the African nature — from 
his father a sensual disposition, and from his mother 
affectionate sympathies. His opening mind was trained 
by her noble intellect, and his father, in spite of his 
faults, saw that the boy received a good education. He 
was sent to school at Madura and at Carthage, and very 
early his splendid intellectual powers began to develop. 
Monica caused him to be entered as a catechumen, but 
his baptism was deferred, partly because of his father's 
feelings, and partly at his own request lest he should 
incur the deeper guilt of sin after baptism. As he grew 
the evil developed as well as the good. The father's 
example was not lost upon him ; he frequented the 
scenes of vice and brutality, and with his strong, im- 
petuous nature rushed headlong into the grossest sins. 
So impure, cynical and coarse did he become that for 
a time his mother declined his presence at her table or 
under her roof. Thus the sorrows and the anxieties of 
the devoted woman were doubled, but still she pleaded 
with God and wrought with husband and son for better 
things. No more beautiful picture in all history is there 
than the heroism of the saintly Monica. Her prayers 
were answered in the first instance : she saw her once-cruel 
and wilful husband brought into the fold of Christ, and 
in the year 371, when Augustine was seventeen years of 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 1 97 

age, Patricius fell asleep in Jesus and was laid by Monica 
in the earth in sure and certain hope of a joyful resur- 
rection : " They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." 
The sunlight broke through the clouds, and gave to 
the widow that peace which none but the believer in 
Christ can know. 

A wealthy friend living in the same village of Tha- 
gaste enabled Monica to continue the education of 
Augustine. He was now in the great and gay city of 
Carthage, then second in importance only to Alexandria 
of all the seaports on the southern shore of the Medi- 
terranean. Here, while pursuing his studies, he plunged 
deeper into sin. Before the first year of his mother's 
widowhood was over he brought to her heart a sorrow 
greater than any she had yet endured. Still she clung 
to him, and ceased not her endeavors to win him over 
to better things. She remained true even when he pro- 
fessed the doctrines of the Manichaeans — a system in 
which hypocrisy and sensuality were but thinly veiled 
by false philosophy and ascetic professions. She made 
him a home, and by kindness tried to save his soul. 

Years passed by. Augustine grew in learning and in 
influence, but his life remained unchanged. He contin- 
ued in sin, in splendid wickedness ; his poor mother, as 
ever, continued the same loving, earnest and consistent 
Christian. 

When in his twenty-ninth year, Augustine resolved to 
leave Carthage for Rome ; he complained of the disor- 
derly and intolerable habits of the Carthaginian students, 
and hoped in the great imperial capital to find work more 
congenial and life more enjoyable. Against this plan 
Monica set her face ; she entreated him not to go. She 



I98 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

pointed out the evil and danger, and one evening he 
gave her the solemn promise that he would remain in 
Carthage. He kissed her good-night ; she went to her 
closet and thanked God. In the morning, from her open 
window, she looked northward upon the blue waters of 
the still Mediterranean. The white sails of a ship were 
spread against the distant horizon ; on that ship, as she 
soon discovered, was Augustine. 

The young man reached Rome, and there a sickness 
awaited him. He recovered only to fall into complete 
infidelity, and almost as complete poverty. He sought 
to teach, and obtained a number of students ; but the 
Roman students had a habit of deserting a professor 
without paying him for the lectures which they had 
heard. This sort of thing went on for about six 
months, and then he was glad to accept an appoint- 
ment at Milan. 

In the mean time, the broken-hearted Monica set out 
in search of her wayward son. " My good and faithful 
mother," said Augustine afterward, "followed me by 
land and water." It did not look as if her prayers were 
to be answered, but she had undying faith. She had 
prayed and she had wrought. Once she begged a bish- 
op, a man of wisdom and years, to talk to the youth, but 
he told her it would be useless so long as he was flushed 
with errors of life and doctrine ; if left to himself, he 
added, he would discover their emptiness. She urged 
her petition with tears, but he dismissed her with the 
assurance that it was " impossible that the child of those 
tears should perish." She treasured up these words as 
if they had been a voice from heaven. She took ship 
for Rome, and in that city she sought for the prodigal. 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 1 99 

It was not till the autumn of the following year, 384, 
that she found him at Milan. Her devotion was not 
unrewarded, for she beheld signs of better things. 

The bishop of Milan at that time was the great and 
.eloquent Ambrose. Everybody who visited Milan went 
to hear him preach; his ability as a rhetorician was 
known far and wide. Augustine, too, was attracted ; 
he attended Ambrose's sermons — not for the sake of 
religious instruction, as he himself says, but to ascer- 
tain if the bishop's eloquence deserved its fame. But 
by degrees the words of Ambrose produced an effect ; 
gradually the mind of Augustine was opened to con- 
viction. He began to see at least his follies of doc- 
trine, if not his sins of life. He introduced himself to 
the bishop and told him his story. Ere long he be- 
came a catechumen, and thus placed himself under relig- 
ious instruction. And it was the delight of Monica, when 
she reached Milan, to see her Augustine, the son of her 
heart's affection, a disciple of the Church and sitting as 
a learner at the feet of one of the Church's greatest 
teachers. All that he had done was forgotten and for- 
given, and she expressed the confident hope of seeing 
him a true believer before she died. Nor did she fail 
to profit by the ministrations of the bishop ; she heard 
his sermons, loved his hymns and followed his advice. 

Monica remained in Milan, and Augustine continued 
in the position he had made for himself there. Better 
things had indeed begun. A mother's prayers were in 
the way of being answered ; bread cast on the waters 
was after many days about to be found. It was a fierce 
struggle through which Augustine had to pass — a strug- 
gle from death unto life. He saw his mother's own pure 



200 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

nature ; he heard of the devotion of men who had given 
up the world. The vileness of his own past career rose 
up before his mind in contrast, and excited violent 
agitations. One day, unable in the wild conflict of his 
thoughts to bear society, he rushed forth into the gar- 
den, cast himself down under a fig tree, and with a gush 
of tears passionately cried out for deliverance from the 
bondage of his sins. While thus engaged he heard as 
if from a neighboring house the voice of a child sing- 
ing repeatedly, " Take up and read." He thought it to 
be a voice from heaven. Returning to the house, he 
seized the volume of St. Paul's Epistles and opened on 
the text, " Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in cham- 
bering and wantonness, not in strife and envying : but 
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provis- 
ion for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." From that 
moment Augustine felt himself another man. The light 
of freedom entered into his heart; all the doubts of 
darkness were scattered. Who can tell the joy of 
angels over one sinner that repenteth ? Who can tell 
the exultation of Monica when she saw the prayers of 
more than thirty years answered ? 

On the eve of Easter day, in the year 387, in the 
baptistery of the Cathedral of Milan, the newly-con- 
verted Augustine received the sacrament of regenera- 
tion. His mother and other friends were present. The 
rite was performed by St. Ambrose, and tradition re- 
cords that as the water of baptism fell like heavenly dew 
upon the brow of the white-robed catechumen the aged 
bishop broke out into song : " We praise thee, O God, 
we acknowledge thee to be the Lord ;" to which, verse 
by verse, Augustine and the company responded. It 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 201 

was a day never to be forgotten, for, evil though his 
early life had been, this son of a saintly mother was a 
chosen vessel to bear God's grace and glory and destined 
to be a prince of theologians and one of the greatest of 
the Fathers. A modern painting represents Monica sit- 
ting and holding the hand of her son and with him gaz- 
ing upward. Possibly the scene is that of this day : 

"Together 'neath the Italian heaven 
They sit, the mother and her son, 

He late from her by errors riven, 
Now both in Jesus one; 

The dear consenting hands are knit, 

And either face, as there they sit, 

Is lifted as to something seen 

Beyond the blue serene." 

And now that Monica's every wish had been realized 
she would wend her way to her native home in Numidia. 
Lovingly Augustine started with her, having sold all his 
goods and given the proceeds to the poor. But ere they 
left Italy sickness came upon the devoted Monica, and 
the sickness was unto death. The blue sea was stretched 
before them and the vessel was ready to sail to the Nu- 
midian land, but for the saintly matron there was another 
ship and another voyage. Once she had hoped to have 
been buried beside Patricius ; then with quiet faith she 
exclaimed, " God will know in the last day whence to 
raise me up." Folded in the arms of her loved Augus- 
tine, thanking God that the desire of her heart was accom- 
plished in the conversion of her son, she breathed her 
gentle and affectionate spirit into the keeping of her 
Lord and entered into rest. " Lay me anywhere," she 
had said, " only remember me at the altar of the Lord ;" 



202 READINGS IN CHURCH HI ST OR Y. 

and Augustine buried her in the quiet of that Italian 
country, and prayed that the Redeemer would guide 
her from happiness to happiness and from joy to joy 
till she should see the fulness of the Beatific Vision. 

From the first Monica received the reverence of 
Christendom. They who knew her, says Augustine, 
"dearly loved her Lord in her, for they felt his pres- 
ence in her heart." In the calendar of the Latin Church 
the 4th of May has long been appointed as her commem- 
oration day, but her name does not occur in that of the 
Anglican Church. Nevertheless, no writers have given 
her greater praise than have those of the Church of 
England. Only one is higher among women — she who 
became the mother of the Lord. Next to Mary, first 
among the daughters of Israel appear Ruth and Lydia 
and Dorcas and Monica. After fifteen hundred years 
the Church still points to the graces and virtues, the 
devotion and holiness, of St. Monica as worthy of im- 
itation ; and for ever will she treasure the memory of 
one whose character is as lovely and whose life is as 
beautiful as is the most lovely and beautiful creation 
which even the world of imagination has known. 

About a year after the decease of his mother Augus- 
tine went back to Africa, intending to adopt the cenobite 
life. At Thagaste, on a little estate left him by his father, 
he founded a community, and in retirement, besides prac- 
tising the austerities prescribed by monachism, he both 
composed some of his earliest treatises and brought to 
Christ one of the dearest friends of his youth. In 391, 
visiting Hippo, a maritime city and once the home of 
the Numidian kings, he was prevailed upon by the 
bishop Valerius to receive ordination. That prelate, 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 203 

being a Greek, was not expert in the Latin language, 
and Augustine, notwithstanding some opposition, estab- 
lished the precedent of a priest preaching in the pres- 
ence of a bishop. Four years later, in ignorance of the 
Nicene canon which forbade a diocese having two bish- 
ops, he was made bishop-coadjutor, but, Valerius dying 
soon after, he succeeded to the sole jurisdiction. His 
qualities now shone with greater brilliancy than ever. 
Neither ensnared nor numbed by the splendor of a posi- 
tion which was enhanced by imperial favor and by the 
general recognition of his intellectual and moral influ- 
ence, he labored earnestly both for the salvation of 
souls and for his own growth in virtue. He lived 
plainly, denying himself the comforts which he might 
reasonably have used, so that he might have more to 
give to the poor. A servant of servants, he sought to 
help all who came in his way. Dignity unsought was 
his, but with the broken and contrite heart of a true 
penitent he never forgot what he had been and the woe- 
ful state from which, by the grace of God, he had been 
rescued. " Too late I loved thee," he cries, "thou Beauty 
of ancient days, yet ever new ! Too late I loved thee ! 
And, behold, thou wert within and I abroad, and there I 
searched for thee — deformed I, plunging amid those fair 
forms which thou hadst made. Thou wert with me, but 
I was not with thee. Things held me far from thee 
which unless they are in thee are not at all. Thou 
didst call and shout, and burst my deafness. Thou 
didst flash and shine, and scatter my blindness. Thou 
didst breathe odors, and I drew in my breath and pant 
for thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst. Thou didst 
touch me, and I burned for thy peace." 



204 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

The Confessions, in which this passage occurs, were 
written in 397, and contain an account of the life of 
Augustine to the time of his mother's death. As a 
revelation of the thoughts and the emotions of a great 
soul in its progress through sin and in its passage from 
death unto life, the book is unique in literature. No 
other writer has so thoroughly and so fearlessly laid 
bare the passions, desires, conflicts and doubts of the 
heart, and this, too, in language which unites the force 
and plainness of prose with the glow and imagery of 
poetry. Sympathy and devotion, like the subtile, per- 
meating aroma rising from rosebushes or violet-banks, 
touch the soul and with irresistible suggestiveness cause 
it to think of the tender relations which are created 
between God and the object of his love. The charm 
of the picture of a mother's search for a wayward son 
and of God's search for a lost life can never pass away. 
Full of rich eloquence, delightful imagery, delicate spir- 
it-touches, scriptural figures, texts and thoughts, strong 
individuality and child-like resignation, the lines of Au- 
gustine not only display a heart which beats with the 
heart of man in all ages, but are also expressions of the 
sublimest hopes and the deepest emotions of the universal 
soul. Once heard, they linger as echoes which, undy- 
ing, pass along the heights of the everlasting hills, and 
which the distance of time makes sweeter, more mellow 
and more to be desired. 

The same power is in the De Civitate Dei, a work 
begun in 413 and finished about 426. Despondency 
and fear had fallen upon the Empire ; corruption within 
and barbarians without had destroyed its strength and 
broken both its spirit and its unity. Men's hearts 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 20 5 

failed them as they saw the passing away of a power 
which they had thought eternal and the crushing of a 
civilization which they had deemed perfect; they anti- 
cipated woes compared with which the evils that had 
passed were nothing. The river was gathering strength 
and swiftness for the cataract : a short while, and then 
the end ; but in the smooth waters beyond would drift 
the wreckage of the labor and building of ages. Against 
this gloomy despair Augustine set all his energy; he 
pointed the world to the City of God which alone is 
eternal and stable, and which alone is the hope of man. 
With the hand of a master he traces out through the 
ages the long procession of the Church, the incorrupti- 
ble body, the kingdom in which Jehovah reigns, the so- 
ciety in which are gathered just men whose native coun- 
try is not of this world, but "eternal in the heavens." 
He shows the passing away of earthly principalities, 
dynasties and powers ; their cities and the glory of 
them become as dust which is swept by wind and 
stream into oblivion, but the Church abides for ever. 
" Most glorious City of God," he writes, " whether 
through the course of the ages, whilst living by faith, 
she makes pilgrimage among the godless, or whether 
in the stability of that eternal dwelling which she now 
patient expects !" Keen is the irony and impetuous 
is the indignation with which he speaks of the corrup- 
tions of the world. Now he entreats, and now he threat- 
ens ; at times his eloquence rises to sublimity, and both 
the riches of learning and the arts of rhetoric are used 
as none but a genius could use them. His fervid piety 
appears in every page. A graphic touch in this line 
discloses the hollowness of life and the folly of terres- 



206 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

trial ambitions ; another rush of the pen, and the soul 
beholds the radiance of the land afar off and the eternal 
felicity of those who are called to the heavenly citizen- 
ship. The book is replete with Augustine's favorite 
theological conceptions ; it is a contribution to the phil- 
osophy of history and to the literature of apologetics, 
but, more than this, it is the expression of the noblest 
thought of a mind which among men is almost unique in 
its unity of beauty, conception, spirituality and wisdom. 
Many of the doctrinal positions of St. Augustine have 
been disputed : so strong a character could not avoid 
asserting itself in vigorous language and arousing 
vehement antagonism. He held the most rigid view 
of the plenary inspiration of the Bible and indulged 
in the then almost universal tendency to allegorical 
interpretation, but his skill in reconciling apparent dis- 
crepancies is second only to his power of drawing out 
of the sacred text charming illustrations and apt appli- 
cations, while his expositions of Scripture are among the 
choicest treasures of the Church. Christologically and 
ecclesiastically he was in complete accord with catholic 
doctrine To the Creed of Nicaea he responded with 
heart and mind, and to the Donatists, who questioned 
the comprehensiveness and visibility of the Church, he 
set forth the orthodox belief. There is, said he, only 
one Church — namely, that which by an uninterrupted 
succession can be traced back to the apostles. It is the 
hallowed ark which alone floats on the waters of the 
flood, and outside of its walls there is no salvation. Nor 
did Augustine hesitate to recommend the forcible sup- 
pression of those who thought otherwise : the diffusion 
of error should be prevented by the civil power, even 



ST.' MONICA AND ST AUGUSTINE. 20y 

as the law forbids the free circulation of poison and 
punishes criminals. In anthropology he took the 
ground of man's absolute helplessness and stripped 
him of every moral power. The waif of earth could 
neither believe nor obey ; a leaf in the wind or a chip 
in a whirlpool had as much power as he to turn to God. 
His sinfulness was unrelievably black and inconceivably 
great, and without prevenient grace he was certain of 
continuing in eternal wickedness. The exaggeration 
was great, but the further assertion that grace was 
given only to a designed and limited number, and that 
none but they would be saved, surpassed it in audacity ; 
yet that extreme enabled the man assured by his own 
experience of the reception of grace to see in bolder 
outline and in richer coloring the splendor of God, 
and to do deeds regardless of results. 

In vindication of his teaching Augustine wrote many 
treatises, the most complete and systematic of which 
was a growth of nearly thirty years. " I began," he 
says, " as a very young man, and have published in my 
old age some books concerning the Trinity." His great- 
est efforts were spent in the controversy with Pelagius, 
who first ventured into the practical question of the re- 
lationship between divine grace and human free will. 
Brought up from childhood in the peace and solitude 
of a distant monastery, this heresiarch had known no 
such sins and had passed through no such crises as had 
befallen Augustine. His character was blameless and 
his life simple and pure. Nor could he, in the inno- 
cence of his soul and the kindliness of his heart, accept 
the doctrine of the total and universal depravity of man. 
Of the world he had no experience ; by personal wick- 



208 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

edness he had never realized the depths of human cor- 
ruption ; and he measured his fellows simply by his 
own unsullied life. Followers he had, chief among 
them being Ccelestius and Julianus, and soon their 
views obtained categorical expression. Briefly, origi- 
nal sin was denied and the natural ability of man to 
'do good and to be good was asserted. From so 
decided a contradiction of catholic teaching Augus- 
tine recoiled with horror and indignation. His experi- 
ence and his reading of holy Scripture convinced him 
otherwise, and in the eagerness of his soul he went to 
the farthest possible extreme. He had felt both the 
power of sin and the strength of grace. Terrible were 
the days in which God had crushed him ; glorious was 
the hour in which he had given him healing and life. 
Hence, denying free will, he sought to prove God to be 
the absolute Controller of man and the sole Author of 
his salvation. 

Of seed cast into the ground, that which is good 
alone survives ; and the Church has long since discov- 
ered the vital lines of St. Augustine's work. These she 
cherishes as priceless in worth and unquestionable in 
authority, but the harsh and exaggerated theories, like 
relics which have lost both virtue and interest, she 
passes by unheeded. Yet these theories, falling like 
shadows upon the heart-flows which make the Confes- 
sions so attractive, bring out the man's complex nature. 
He is not one whose character can be expressed in a 
sentence or whose soul can be read at a glance. He has 
both the gentleness of a John and the awfulness of an 
Elijah. Now his words are like the soft song of the 
swallow, whispering of coming summer and happy 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 209 

woodlands ; anon they have the ominous cry of ravens. 
His roses are thick with jagged thorns ; his sky has 
spaces of deepest azure flanked with clouds of most 
threatening aspect. He is both a recluse and a man 
of the world, a pastor and a theologian, a tender friend 
and a sharp adversary, a blunt, vigorous, thoroughgoing 
prelate with the heart of a woman, and as great a saint 
as once he was a great sinner. Reading his books, page 
follows page in which the mind wanders as in a garden ; 
rich is the imagery, lovely are the thoughts, fragrant, 
suggestive and precious are the imaginations. Every- 
where abound the flowers of wondrous beauty created 
by a master-hand. In the spray of the fountains are 
sunbeams and in the air are murmurings of music and 
aromatic streams. That is Augustine in his gentler 
mood — if not in his truer, yet in his more human, self. 
He is the son of Monica, his spirit touched with her 
grace and his words winsome as were hers. Then 
comes the inevitable change — a veritable autumnal 
sweeping of the landscape. The garden vanishes and 
a mountain-peak lifts itself to lofty heights. Rugged 
and bare, cleft and bleached with furious storms, it soars 
above the hills around, terrible in its grandeur, bewilder- 
ing in its distance and sublime in its solitude. Such is 
Augustine when in his massive intellectual force he de- 
clares theories which chill the soul and perplex the mind. 
The winds sweep down from the towering precipice, and 
the flowers which seemed to say " God is love " fold 
their leaves and shiver.to death ; yet — strange paradox ! — 
that very height, desolate and bleak, is the first to catch 
the morning sunbeams and the last to lose the glow of 
the evening light. 

14 



210 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Augustine has given no record of his episcopate like 
that of his life as a layman, but much may be gathered 
from his letters, sermons and books to show his dili- 
gence in the episcopal office. A passage in a discourse 
delivered about thirty years after his consecration both 
illustrates his own devotion and suggests the love which 
existed between him and his people. " I have not pre- 
sumption enough," he says, " to imagine that I have 
never given any of you subject of complaint against me 
during the time I have exercised the functions of the 
episcopacy. If, then, overwhelmed at times with the 
cares and duties of my office, I have not granted audi- 
ence to you when you asked it, or if I have received 
you with an air of coldness or abstraction ; if I have 
ever spoken to any one with severity ; if by anything 
whatever in my answers I have wounded the feelings of 
the afflicted who implored my succor ; if, occupied with 
other thoughts, I have neglected or deferred assisting 
the poor or shown by any displeasure in my counte- 
nance that I deemed them too importunate in their solici- 
tations ; lastly, if I have betrayed too much acuteness 
of feeling with respect to the false suspicions that some 
have entertained against me ; and if, through the weak- 
ness of human nature, I have conceived unjust opinions 
of others, — in return pardon me, O my people, to whom 
I confess all faults— pardon me for them, I conjure you ; 
and so also shall you obtain the pardon of your sins." 

The busy and earnest life ended amid the sounds of 
war. In 428, Genseric, king of the Vandals, at the in- 
vitation of Boniface, governor of the Roman provinces 
of Africa, passed from Spain into Numidia. When Boni- 
face realized the remorseless policy of the barbarians 



ST. MONICA AND ST. AUGUSTINE. 211 

and beheld the land cast into unutterable anguish, he 
returned to his allegiance to the emperor and led his 
army against the invader. Genseric, however, tightened 
his grasp upon a country so rich and so fertile : to give 
up the granary of the world was beyond his power ; and 
after defeating Boniface in the field he shut him up in 
the city of Hippo, whither the remains of the Roman 
army had fled for refuge. The siege began in June, 
430, nor was capitulation made till the following year. 
In the mean time, the aged Augustine fell sick. As 
long as he could stand he continued to encourage his 
countrymen, but the infirmities of threescore and fifteen 
years pressed heavily upon him, and soon came the fever 
of death. Possidius, bishop of Calama, and for forty 
years one of Augustine's dearest friends and most 
devoted allies, was constant by his bedside. At the 
radiance which rested on the face of the saint he won- 
dered, and thought of Stephen. " He was unable," 
Possidius afterward wrote, " to restrain his desire to be 
with his Lord. He broke forth into words of longing 
for the City of God. It was a plain and barely-fur- 
nished room in which he lay. He ordered the seven 
penitential psalms to be written out against the wall 
and placed where he could see them as he lay in bed, 
and these he looked at and read in his days of sickness, 
weeping often and much. And, that he might not be 
restrained, about ten days before his death he asked of 
us who were present that no one should come in except 
at those hours when the physician came to* see him or 
when refreshment was brought. And so it was done as 
he wished, and he had all that time for prayer." 

The August days drew to a close ; the Vandals still 



212 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

clamored at the closed portals of Hippo; but for Au- 
gustine were thrown open the gates of the City of God. 
Conscious to the last and uttering words of penitence 
and hope, he drew near to the threshold ; then he passed 
into the light, and because of the exceeding and ineffa- 
ble glory men saw him no more. 

In all the calendars August 28, the day of Augus- 
tine's death, is the day of his commemoration. When 
the Vandals took the city, they respected his remains and 
preserved his library. Nor till the end of all things will 
his memory perish. His life is a witness to the power 
of love and grace ; his words have opened up to men 
the way into realms of thought and fields of action 
where humanity has been made beautiful and strong in 
the life of God. The opening words of his Confessions 
reveal himself. Addressing God, he says : 

" Great art thou ; great is thy power, thy wisdom infi- 
nite, and thee would man praise, though but a particle 
of thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in thy 
praise, for thou madest us for thyself, and our heart is 
restless till it rests in thee. Narrow is the measure of 
my soul : enlarge thou it, that thou mayest enter in. 
It is ruinous : repair thou it." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

®ije HSrtttefj ILantr atttr ©fjurrf)* 

The navigators and traders of the ancient world 
were the dark-red Phoenicians. They loosed the pine 
trees from the hills and as ships sent them bounding 
through unknown waves. Among them commerce and 
art flourished before the men of the JEgean began 
their work. More than a thousand years preceding the 
Christian era their colonies were scattered about the 
shores of the Mediterranean — one, at least, on the tide- 
washed coast of Spain beyond the Pillars of Heracles — 
and their ships ventured into many seas and brought to 
Tyre the merchandise of many lands. Ezekiel, writing 
640 B. C, mentions tin as one of the staples of their vast 
commerce, and, while it is possible some came from 
Spain, it is highly probable that the greater quantity 
came from Britain. Herodotus, 460 b. c, expressly 
speaks of the Tin Islands. He confesses his ignorance 
of a country so far beyond the bounds of the world, 
and the wary Phoenicians did not care to make known 
their fortunate discovery of a land so rich as Cornwall 
in a rare and precious metal. They were prudently 
silent concerning that which lay within the mysterious 
Atlantic. A century later, when the supremacy of the 
Canaanites had for ever passed away, Aristotle writes : 
" Beyond the Pillars of Heracles the ocean flows round 

213 



214 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the earth ; in this ocean, however, are two islands, and 
those very large, called Britannic, Albion and Ierne." 
Posidonius, 320 b. c, states that tin was brought from 
Britain to Massilia, and Polybius in 250 B. c. wrote a 
history of the manufacture and trade in British metals. 

These are the earliest historical references to the Inis 
Wen, or the White Island, as it was called from its chalk 
cliffs. Geology and archaeology, however, enable us to 
go farther back. Ages — probably millenniums — before 
Tyrian set his sails to the ocean-winds, Britain, in com- 
mon with the whole northern hemisphere, passed through 
a remarkable crisis. The climate, which had been very 
warm, gradually cooled, and to such an extent that the 
greater part of Britain was buried under ice and snow. 
The whole of Northern Europe became ice-covered as 
is Central Greenland at this day. Much of the land was 
also depressed, and over the submerged tracts flowed 
the cold Arctic waters with their floating icebergs. It 
has been calculated that the ice in Norway became six 
or seven thousand feet thick. Where once tropical life 
had flourished prevailed the flora and the fauna of the 
polar region. Before this dreary episode came on, man 
lived in Britain, and there are remains which show that 
he made his home in caves and obtained his livelihood 
by hunting and by fishing. Some have thought that 
his general characteristics were similar to those of the 
Eskimo ; others, to those of the tribes of Central Tar- 
tary. An advance in the arts is indicated by the relics 
of implements and weapons which have been found. 
His land was then part of the continent ; the St. George's 
and the Bristol channels were fertile valleys in which fed 
the rhinoceros and the mammoth, and whose wilds were 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH. 21 5 

the home of the lion and the wolf; the North Sea was 
a wide plain across which flowed the Rhine, and in its 
course received the waters of the Elbe, the Humber and 
the Thames ; and the mountains of Wales were still hot 
with the volcanic fires which for long ages had fiercely 
raged there. 

Whether man survived the terrible ice-invasion is a 
question ; but when it had passed away and light again 
breaks, Britain is inhabited by a race in what is known 
as the Stone Age of civilization. Their arrow-heads 
and their spear-points were of stone and shaped with 
tools of stone. The geographical outline and the phys- 
ical life of the country were then much as at present. 
The people were swarthy, slight and short — for the 
most part, with low, shallow skulls — and are possibly 
still represented by the Finns and the Basques. They 
lived in huts or wigwams made of poles and wattled- 
work and thatched with rushes or covered with sods. 
A hole in the side of the simple structure served both as 
a chimney for the smoke and as a door for the inmates. 
The men, armed with bow and sharp flint-headed arrow, 
fearless of death and cruel as the wolves in the jungle- 
like woodland, hunted the /beasts of the forest or lay in 
wait for and struggled with human foes. The women, 
more degraded, worse clothed and dirtier than they, 
urged them on to deeds of blood and gloated over their 
victories. The badly-tilled soil supplied the family with 
roots, cows and goats, half tamed and thriving poorly in 
captivity, gave them milk, and the forest furnished them 
with fuel. In some parts of the country, later in time, 
they had fixed dwellings and stored their food — corn, 
nuts and roots. The presence of the cat suggests the 



2l6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

plague of rats and mice ; in fact, bones both of Puss and 
of her prey have been found. 

These people were dispossessed — probably six or seven 
centuries before Christ — at the immigration of the Keltic 
branch of the Aryan race. By what pressure the Kelts 
were forced to leave the Continent for the inhospitable 
shores of the Atlantic islands we know not ; but when 
they had made good their foothold there, the process of 
amalgamation with the earlier inhabitants soon began, 
though for centuries many of the latter retained their 
identity; and, indeed, the type is said still to exist in 
some parts of England, as it certainly does on the Con- 
tinent. Something of the new life thus introduced may 
be read in the village-sites, the barrows and the crom- 
lechs scattered over the country. 

Legend has dealt freely with those times. Accord- 
ing to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Britain was discovered 
and named in the year 1108 B.C. by Brutus, a Trojan 
and a " great-grandson of the famous ^Eneas, who was 
the child of Venus and the descendant of Jove." The 
Scotch fondly ascribed their origin to Scota, a daughter 
of an Egyptian Pharaoh, the Irish had their Hibernus, 
and the Welsh still proudly assert that they are of the 
Kymry who were led by Hugh Cadarn from the land of 
summer, in far South-eastern Europe, "through the hazy 
ocean to the island of Britain when there were no men 
alive on it, nor anything else but wolves, bears and oxen 
with high protuberances." 

Such traditions, though truthless, betoken both a sense 
of virtue and a desire for antiquity. They who invent 
them know the value of age and recognize qualities 
of which they would fain believe themselves inheritors. 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH 217 

Nor were the early Britons, as evolved out of this mix- 
ture of race, with probably an influx of Phoenician blood, 
altogether unworthy of regard. If they were rude and 
simple and had not acquired the habits of Greece and 
of Rome, they were not upon the low level of the 
natives of the Sandwich Islands : savages do not work 
mines nor prepare minerals for the market. Their com- 
merce with the Phoenicians implies some knowledge 
both of arts and of social economy. From the deep 
pits on the north shore of the Thames chalk was ex- 
ported for the use of the silversmiths in Rome and 
of the farmers in Gaul. In time Britain became the 
granary of the empire, and oysters from the shores of 
the Trinobantes were a delicacy with imperial epicures. 
Their skill was also shown in their weapons made of 
mingled copper and tin, and in the boats of osier cov- 
ered with bullocks' hides wherewith they crossed the 
stormy seas around their island-home. In their deal- 
ings they were reputed to be plain and upright, and 
they used for money brass coins, rings and plates of 
iron. They had long hair and were distinguished from 
the people of Southern Europe in wearing trousers and 
in staining the body sky-blue. In war they were fierce, 
brave and wary, fighting not only on foot, but also in 
chariots to the axle-trees of which were attached hooks 
and scythes. Their houses, built of wood and mud, 
consisted of one room, in which lived and slept the 
man, his wife — or his wives, as the case might be — his 
children and his pets. Among his pets were hens, hares 
and geese, which he never used for food. With his 
neighbors he united in a small village community every 
member of which was connected with him by blood, 



2l8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and the village-homes, set in a clearing of the forest, 
were fenced around with trenches and trees cut down 
and laid crosswise. The woodlands afforded him deer, 
wild fruits and birds ; sometimes he ate the bark of 
trees, and from the rude earth he gathered barley for 
his ale and rye for his bread. The grain was housed 
in the ear, only a sufficient quantity for the day being 
threshed and ground at a time. Though the rivers 
were full of pike and of eels and the coasts were fre- 
quented by seals and by dolphins, the people are said 
not to have eaten fish. The mussels along the seashore 
yielded an inferior pearl ; the whelk, a rich scarlet dye. 
Communication of settlement with settlement and of 
tribe with tribe there must have been, but it was doubt- 
less difficult owing to the dense forests, the unbridged 
rivers and the extensive fens and marshes. The picture 
suggested by such facts as these is that of a people 
rough and simple indeed because cut off from the world 
of higher life and immured in a wild land, yet with a 
civilization not altogether the extreme opposite of that 
which prevailed in more favored climes. These people 
and this island in time were to be added by the Romans 
to the Empire and by the Christians to the Church. 

The nature of the religion of the ancient Britons is not 
so well known as is the name : for the Druids as well 
as the Phoenicians were silent men, and their beliefs 
and their mysteries can only be conjectured by the 
profane. It is probable that they were largely Nature- 
worshippers with some affinity to the mystical relig- 
ions of Asia. Much of their symbolism seems to con- 
nect them with the cultus of Astarte. They held the 
doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and it is pos- 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH 219 

sible that they had a principal Deity, an All-Father 
whose symbol on earth was the dak, and whose 
creature, man — entirely dependent upon the Creator, 
and yet with an individual existence — was represented 
by the mistletoe. Certainly the oak was regarded with 
great reverence ; its leaves adorned the priests and en- 
tered into every rite, and the ceremonies observed at 
the gathering of the all-healing and Heaven-sent para- 
site were elaborate and solemn. On the sixth day of 
the moon a priest in white vestment climbed the tree 
and with a golden pruning-knife cut off the mistletoe, 
which fell into a white woollen cloth beneath. Two 
white bulls were then sacrificed and the plant was sol- 
emnly consecrated. At times, it is said, human sacri- 
fices were offered. Charms were common, especially 
the egg made from the saliva and the froth of serpents 
writhing in an entangled mass, which may have sym- 
bolized the outcome of wrestling wisdom in the fact 
of the resurrection. Magic also prevailed, the worship 
of the subordinate gods was taught, and strange, un- 
canny rites were performed in secret glades and distant 
groves. The priesthood is said to have been divided 
into three orders — the Druids, the bards and the ovates 
— and further particulars are somewhat speculatively 
advanced concerning them. The Druids wore a white 
robe in token of holiness, purity and truth. Theirs 
was the sacerdotal order ; they knew the mysteries and 
offered the sacrifices. The bards, who were the poets, 
historians and genealogists, were robed in blue, emble- 
matical of peace. The ovates professed astronomy and 
medicine, and garments of green, the color of the cloth- 
ing of nature and the symbol of learning, distinguished 



220 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

them. The disciples of these orders wore variegated 
dresses of these and sometimes other colors, and served 
a long novitiate. 

The bleak and barren island of Mona, now Anglesea, 
was for long the sacred Mecca or Rome of this religion. 
In the solitude of rocky wastes swept by the wild winds 
of an ever-restless sea, on the remotest edge of the world 
and far away from shores exposed to the incursions of 
strangers, were the home of the pontiff and the great 
college for the training of Druids. There was centred 
the whole system ; there were imparted the secrets and 
there was taught the skill which made the priest great 
among the people and gave him a power which at times 
seemed almost limitless. The megalithic remains scat- 
tered over Britain and the neighboring Brittany, then 
closely connected with the great island, testify to the 
extension and the grandeur of the cult, even though 
one may question the alleged completeness of its organ- 
ization and the perfection of its discipline. Nor is the 
religious mystery the only one connected with such 
places as Stonehenge, Rowldrich and Botallek : the 
mechanical secret is also unknown. The removal of 
huge stones from their native quarries and their erection 
in their present positions suggest a knowledge of arts 
of which no record exists. These circles are among 
the wonders of the ancient world. They exist in Brit- 
ain ; they are also found near Tyre, in Cappadocia and 
in the land of Moab. What rites were celebrated in 
these temples, open to the winds and the rains of heaven, 
we know not : no inscriptions lie beneath the gray lichen- 
stains to help us in finding out. In the graves around 
the sanctuary the dead are mostly buried in a crouching 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH 221 

posture and with weapons and trinkets, sometimes — per- 
haps in the case of warriors — with a horse. The site 
selected was in the lone wilderness, on the bleak hill- 
side, in the open heath or in the deep forest — a place 
for weird mysteries and bewildering emotions. The 
lofty menhir, or long stone, erected near the temple may 
have served as a pedestal for an idol — perhaps was a 
symbol of the worshipped deity — or as a guide to the 
people as they wended their way thither across the moor 
or through the valley. Silence now abides there, but 
imagination lingers and recalls the days when Roman 
burnt incense on the Capitoline Hill, and Ephesian wor- 
shipped the great Diana, and Druid, in oaken garland 
and snowy vestment, with crescent and sceptre and ring, 
practised his magic and chanted his hymns in the lone 
and ghost-haunted recesses of the island set in the bor- 
der-sea between heaven and earth. 

The conquest of Britain by the Romans and the con- 
sequent introduction of the Southern paganism no doubt 
modified, and also divided, the interest of the old relig- 
ion. Bravely fought the islanders against the Italian 
invaders. Nor was the effort of the latter successful 
for nearly a century and a half. On the one side were 
generals such as Julius Caesar, Aulus Plautius, Vespa- 
sian, Ostorius Scapula and Paulinus Suetonius ; on the 
other, princes such as Cassivellaunus, Cynobellinus and 
Caractacus, and queens such as Boadicea. But not till 
A. d. 84 and under Cnaeus Julius Agricola could the 
island be claimed as part of the Roman Empire. Then 
for three centuries and a half the Caesar ruled. 

The Roman occupation of the island was almost en- 
tirely military ; there were Roman residents and traders, 



222 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

but there were few Roman colonists or settlers. The 
land, probably divided into grants to men both foreign 
and native-born whose allegiance was sure or whose in- 
terest it was advisable to retain, was cultivated by the 
ancient sons of the soil, who were either slaves or small 
sub-holders on servile tenure. Every villa or manor — 
as the house of the lord was called — had its " ergastu- 
lum," its chamber of correction, partly underground, 
with narrow windows high and out of reach, where 
disobedient slaves we^e confined and tormented. Some 
authorities held that the cleverest slaves should be often- 
est kept in irons, and others said that they should be in- 
cited to quarrel amongst themselves lest they should 
conspire against their master. It was also thought 
cheaper to work them to death than to let them grow 
old and useless. The small tenant-farmers were little 
better off; they were bound to perform certain services 
and to give so many days' work for the benefit of the 
owner of the land. In the way of taxation ingenuity 
did its utmost. Corn-grounds, plantations, groves and 
pasturages were assessed, custom duties were exacted, 
a poll-tax was levied, and heavy and exorbitant tributes 
went into the imperial treasuries. The land and the 
people were held in the unflinching grasp of a military 
despotism. 

It does not appear to have been the policy of the con- 
querors to Romanize Britain. Other lands they sought 
to make part and parcel of their own system, so that 
eventually the privileges and customs which were com- 
mon to the city were extended to the annexed territory, 
but from first to last Britain was an outside world held 
only for profit's sake and by the people of the South 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH. 223 

despised for its inhospitable climate and its impenetrable 
wilds. The effort seems to have been to keep the tribes 
of the island separate and at variance with one another. 
They were divided in the days of Julius Caesar ; they 
were divided in the days of Honorius, nearly five cen- 
turies later. Unarmed and enslaved, reduced to till the 
ground of which once they had been free lords, impov- 
erished by unceasing taxation and accustomed, as time 
went on, to regard the Roman as their ruler and their 
defender, they forgot the art of government and came 
wellnigh losing all self-respect and all desire for free- 
dom. 

The marks of bondage are to be seen in the great 
roads and military stations made by the Romans. Car- 
lisle, Lincoln, Bath, London, Wroxeter and the many 
Chesters scattered over the land were garrisoned and 
fortified centres. At London an embankment was made 
and the marshes were drained, so that the river was kept 
within narrower bounds ; on the Saxon shore forts were 
built ; the experiment of China had its counterpart on 
the northern borders of the province ; while the Foss- 
way, Watling- street, Ermine-street and the Ikenild were 
the great arteries along which coursed the imperial 
legions, and by which were conveyed from place to 
place the produce and the tribute of forest, field and 
mine. Here and there are still found remains of Roman 
villas, and, though chimneys were unknown and owing 
to the clouds and rain the atrium and the barn were cov- 
ered over, the wealthier inhabitants burnt coal and had 
glass in their windows. These houses were largely 
built of stone frequently quarried fifty or a hundred 
miles away. The towns were also massively and dura- 



224 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bly constructed. Of the huts of the native peasantry 
little is known, but they had far less in common with 
the mansions of the Roman residents than to-day the 
cottages of the poor have with the houses of the rich. 
The social gulf was at this time probably wider than it 
has ever since been. 

The time and the manner of the introduction of 
Christianity into Britain have long been debated, but 
this is certain — that the traditions piously and zealous- 
ly handed down by antiquaries and historians of an 
apostolic origin for that Christianity not only are with- 
out foundation, but are, moreover, palpable efforts at 
rivalry with older churches. The dignity of age had 
in itself sufficient attraction to lead men to repeat as 
facts the suppositions or allusions of earlier writers. 
Irenseus, about 176, enumerates the churches of the 
West, but knows of none in Britain ; nor is there any 
evidence whatever to show that Christianity existed 
there in' the second century. The attempts to prove 
an apostolical antiquity are indeed desperate. Not 
only is St. Paul said to have been the first preacher of 
the gospel, but St. Peter, St. Simon Zelotes, St. Philip, 
St. James the Great and St. John are also severally ac- 
credited with the same work. Aristobulus is likewise 
alleged to have been sent thither, while a myth as beau- 
tiful as it is untrue has grown around Joseph of Arima- 
thea and his mission in the isle of Avalon. These 
legends were either unknown or considered uncertain 
at Rome, for in the fifth or sixth century another story 
there sprang up which if true would itself imply the 
falsity of those associated with the apostolic age. 

About the year 180 — so runs the legend — a native 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH. 225 

king, Lucius, sent an embassy to Eleutherus, then bish- 
op of Rome, desiring him to send teachers that he and 
his people might be instructed in the Christian faith. 
This is the germ of the story ; as time went on it was 
embellished. The year is that in which the golden reign 
of Marcus Aurelius came to an end and the weak and 
heartless Commodus received the purple. In Rome the 
outbreak of political and moral corruption was speedy 
and vehement. The emperor steeped his soul in vice 
and stained his hands with blood ; pestilence and famine 
spread disaffection among the populace, and in Britain 
there was nothing but war and sedition. The feelings 
of the Britons toward their conquerors were never cor- 
dial, and, while Rome sometimes recognized native 
princes, yet at this time she had little sympathy with 
Christianity and would scarcely allow an illegal religion 
to be brought into a military jurisdiction. Nor may the 
suspicion be altogether unfounded of an endeavor to 
support the growing claims of the papacy. Certainly 
the story was not heard of until three centuries after the 
time of Eleutherus, nor did it obtain its full form for 
another seven hundred years. Its value must be taken 
accordingly. 

We have, indeed, no trustworthy testimony that Chris- 
tianity had made any appreciable advance in Britain till 
toward the end of the third century, and it was doubt- 
less long after that before the old paganism found in it 
a formidable opponent. With the dawn of the fourth 
century the Church in Britain comes to light ; from that 
time on it slowly advances: — probably more among the 
Roman residents than among the native pagans — never, 
indeed, to occupy a high position or to do a great work, 

15 



226 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

but still living its little fitful life, till at last it was extin- 
guished and passed away for ever in the more brilliant 
Church of a sturdier race. It had its bishops. Some 
of them were present at the Council of Aries in 314; 
others may have been at Nicsea in 325 and at Sardica in 
347, and others, again, at Ariminum in 359. Tradition 
asserts the existence of three metropolitan sees, York, 
London and Caerleon ; certainly in the course of this 
century the country had its churches, altars, scripture 
and discipline, and had declared its adherence to the 
Catholic faith as set forth at Nicaea. Britain had also 
its martyr, if we may accept the story of St. Alban. 
This martyr died about 303 — according to one author- 
ity, in 283 — and is said to have been converted to the 
cross by observing the piety of a fugitive Christian to 
whom he had given shelter. His zeal was as fervent 
as it was sudden. He refused both to give up his new- 
ly-found friend and to sacrifice to the gods. The sentence 
of death was pronounced upon him, and the penalty was 
carried out, though on the way to the place of martyr- 
dom he made a path through the river, converted the 
executioner and caused a spring of water to burst from 
the top of a hill. Nor were the persecutors stayed from 
beheading the changed executioner because the eyes of 
the man who took his office fell to the ground at the 
same moment as St. Alban's head. The earliest evi- 
dence extant of the martyrdom is about a hundred and 
twenty-five years after ; the coloring is given by Bede, 
three hundred years later still ; but for centuries pilgrim- 
ages were made to Verulam, and the church in which it 
is said are the remains of the saint is now the cathedral 
of an Anglican bishop. 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH. 22*J 

A century subsequent to this alleged martyrdom the 
British Church lapsed into heresy. Pelagius was sup- 
posed by his contemporaries to have been a Briton, and 
early tradition declared that his name was Morgan, that 
he came from Bangor, in North Wales, and that he was 
a layman. Though this may have been said in dispar- 
agement of the famous antagonist of total depravity and 
predestination, yet the people of his reputed land adopted 
his views with avidity. The intellectual and the theolog- 
ical poverty of the island-Church is shown by the bish- 
ops sending to Gaul for some divines to counteract the 
heresy. About 429, Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus 
of Troyes began their work, and so eloquent was their 
preaching and so many were their miracles that the 
erring Church was soon brought back to the orthodox 
faith. Cornwall still remembers the former saint. 

Some effort was made in the same century for the 
evangelization of Ireland and of Scotland — parts out- 
side of the Roman province of Britain. The work of 
St. Patrick in the former country and of St. Ninian 
in the latter can never be forgotten. The monastery 
at Whithern became a centre of religious light and 
strength for many a day, and on the extreme bounds 
of Europe sprang up a Church which for its spiritual 
heroes, missionary zeal, self-denial and independence 
is deserving of the highest praise. But the Church to 
the south — commonly known as the British Church — 
seems to have dwindled into a state where even heresy 
was impossible and aggression was unknown. 

Strong as had been the hold of Rome on Britain, ex- 
tensive as had been its occupation, the day was now near 
at hand when the island would have to be given up. 



228 READINGS IN CHURCH HIS TORY. 

The strength was rapidly passing away which had won 
a world spreading from the Euphrates to the Atlantic 
and from the sun-burnt deserts of Africa to the bleak 
hills of Caledonia. Now was Britain woefully distressed 
with the incursions of savage tribes. Along the eastern 
and southern shores ravaged the Scandinavian and Saxon 
pirates ; the Scots, passing over in boats from Ireland, 
invaded the west, and the Picts from the north defied 
the ditches and the walls of Severus. Rome needed 
her soldiers on more important frontiers, and was there- 
fore able to make but a feeble and temporary resistance. 
In 403 the huge Roman fabric, the growth of more than 
a millennium, again gave signs of breaking asunder. 
The Goth was at the gates of Rome; Italy was rav- 
aged, Dacia overrun and Africa separated. The timid 
and languid Honorius withdrew most of the army from 
Britain, and after a vain endeavor to maintain his rights 
and to administer law there was obliged, about 420, to 
take away the last remnant of his soldiery. Britain was 
irrecoverably lost; the reign of the Caesars there had 
come to an end, and the island was now and for ever 
outside of the Roman world. 

The influence of Rome on Britain must have been 
considerable, but Britain never became Roman to the 
same extent as did Gaul and the subject-lands around 
the Mediterranean. The laws, customs, language, relig- 
ion, dress and architecture of the stronger civilization 
would naturally make themselves felt. Possibly some 
features in the holding of land remain to this day, and 
folklorists have sought to trace some connection between 
old Roman customs and certain modern observances be- 
longing to weddings and funerals, to the May-day and 



THE BRITISH LAND AND CHURCH 229 

parochial perambulations. But the national character- 
istics and the native tastes of the Britons were not 
destroyed. When left to themselves, the people speed- 
ily went back to their tribal life, and, rather than hold- 
ing together, weakened themselves by petty jealousies 
and sanguinary struggles. Possibly even the new and 
never-strong Christianity began to lapse into the old 
Druidism. Energy was destroyed; the forests grew 
and the marshes widened tiieir borders ; fields were left 
untilled and mines untouched ; the highways were neg- 
lected and the walls suffered to fall into ruins ; and it 
was left to a race neither British nor Roman to make 
the land of chalk-cliffs into the land of sea-kings and 
world-rulers — the country of Phoenician traders into the 
centre of the earth's commerce and the producer of the 
earth's wealth. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Ei)t atonberston of (ffinglanir. 

The withdrawal of the Romans from Britain, and the 
consequent weakness of the native population, gave a 
clear opportunity of ravage to the pirates and marau- 
ders of the North Sea. These ocean-scourers had their 
home on the low plains near the Elbe, the Weser and 
the Eyder and in the fiords and mountains of Norway. 
They were divided into tribes known as Jutes, Angles, 
Saxons and Danes, and were of the same parent-stock 
as the Kimmerian and Keltic races which had so long 
occupied the West of Europe, but of a later emigration 
and from long ages of separation of widely-differing cha- 
racteristics. It is probable that the family from which 
they were more immediately derived made their first 
appearance in Europe in the sixth or seventh century 
before the Christian era, and by that restless energy 
which had impelled them to leave their home in the 
valleys of distant India, and age by age to make their 
way through wide and unknown lands, disregarding 
the barriers of desert or river, of sea or mountain, and 
driving before them such earlier settlers as might oppose 
their progress, were led on till they reached the shores 
and the islands of the wild North Sea. They who stayed 
in the lowlands between our modern Denmark and Bel- 
gium found themselves in a region exposed to the cold 

230 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 23 1 

and stormy winds and except for an occasional dune of 
drifted sand liable to the encroachment and inundation of 
the sea. The climate was wet and inhospitable. Scarcely 
had the summer stilled the spring gales and given life 
and verdure to the dark woods and the sea-girt meadows 
when it was shortened by the fogs and the desolation of 
autumn, prelude to the long, dismal and lonesome winter. 
The inaccessibility of the country protected it from the 
arms of the Roman ; so that the land of the Saxon never 
passed under the imperial rule, and the worthlessness of a 
large portion of it was conducive to liberty and warfare. 
This dreary corner of the earth was at once the cra- 
dle of the world's freedom and the refuge of the fiercest 
and boldest of the world's pirates. Inured by hard- 
ship and privation, they proved their prowess and their 
ferocity on every shore; they pillaged, burnt and de- 
stroyed whatever came in their way; of mercy they 
knew little — of cowardice, still less ; and so dauntless 
were they that they stayed not even at the lines of the 
Roman province of Britain. Many a barque in the Sep- 
tember days turned its prow toward the Saxon land 
laden with newly-gathered corn, choice fruits, treasures 
of gold and garments, cattle and captives from the store- 
houses, villas and farms along the eastern shores of the 
great island. When the winter came, the sea-robbers 
would drive away the lingering ague and brighten the 
dreary eventide with wine of rare and distant vintage 
and with tales of chilling horror and of wondrous cour- 
age. But, though they gloried in deeds of plunder and 
of blood, they had nobler traits and loftier thoughts. 
Of women and children they were considerate ; by the 
sense of justice, fair play and honor, not altogether unin- 



232 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

fluenced ; and if in their practical, blunt, coarse life poe- 
try and art were lost, they were loyal to religion and 
devoted to freedom. They would be as unrestrained as 
were the winds which carried their white-winged ships 
across the sea, and as fearless as was the gull which 
faces the tempest or floats upon the billow. 

It was, indeed, upon the sea that their spirit reached 
its highest manifestation. A century before Rome gave 
up Britain she was forced to take measures against these 
formidable adventurers. The government stationed a 
fleet at Boulogne under Gajausius to watch, and, if pos- 
sible, to suppress, the sea-rovers ; unfortunately, the wily 
Menapian united with the foe and by their aid held Brit- 
ain for some time in revolt. From him they learned a 
surer navigation and the art of naval combat. Their 
shallow, flat-bottomed vessels were framed of light tim- 
ber with the sides and upper works of wicker covered 
with strong hides; nor did they hesitate in such frail 
craft to brave the perils of the deep or to proceed up 
the waters of great and unknown rivers. Later they 
had cheoles, or war-keels, of greater size and stronger 
build, long, heavy and high, such as that discovered a few 
years since at Gogstad, in Norway, which measured sev- 
enty-four feet from stem to stern, was sixteen feet broad 
amidships, drew five feet of water and had twenty ribs. 
All their contemporaries speak of the love of these 
tribes for the sea. Joy came to them in the tempest ; 
protection, in the storm. Even Rome readily acknow- 
ledged the prowess of the rude masters of the main. 

And now these seafarers came to the shores of Britain 
— not so much to rob granaries as to acquire land and 
to found colonies. In small bands they disembarked — 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 233 

some in the South, some in the East and some in the 
North — not by any preconcerted unity of action or at 
any one time, but according to the independent will or 
whim of the tribe or family. There was no one general 
invasion, but a constant succession of emigrations, each 
working its own way, fighting its own battles and mak- 
ing secure its own foothold. Long centuries were to 
pass before these isolated colonies would be brought 
together into a confederation of kingdoms and finally 
welded into one firm and compact realm. In vain did 
the Britons struggle against them : the fierce Saxon 
rarely lost a battle and never let go his grip. Little by 
little the natives were either reduced to slavery, killed in 
war or driven to the mountain-fastnesses of the West, 
while the invaders, caring little either for Roman civil- 
ization or for British art, simply swept the land of both. 
Between the two races there was no touch of sympathy ; 
they had neither speech, traditions nor religion in com- 
mon, and therefore on the one side was naught but con- 
tempt and on the other naught but hatred. In the 
course of fifteen decades the conquerors proved them- 
selves to be as good farmers as they had been pirates 
— as able to till the soil as they had been to plough the 
sea. They built towns, made roads, established settle- 
ments and founded kingdoms. By A. d. 600 the whole 
eastern half of the island, from the Firth of Forth to the 
Isle of Wight, and from the hills of Devon, the river Sev- 
ern and the Cumbrian mountains to the sea, was in their 
hands. Of their kingdoms, Mercia stretched from the 
mountains of Wales to the fens of Cambridge and from 
the Humber to the Thames ; Northumbria lay beyond the 
former river and Wessex to the south of the latter ; An- 



234 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

glia was to the east of the fens ; and Kent occupied the 
region covered by the modern county of the same name. 
Each governed itself, and each, with varying success, 
sought supremacy over its neighbor ; so that the number 
and the boundaries of the kingdoms were continually 
changing. At this time the Scots held Ireland and Ar- 
gyle, and the Picts what are now called the Highlands of 
Scotland. In Strathclyde, Cumbria, Wales and Corn- 
wall the Briton kept his own, cherishing the bitterest 
feelings against the enemy which had driven him away 
and had occupied his land, brooding over the difference 
between Roman policy which merely made subjects 
and English policy which shaved the face of the earth, 
and ever ready to slip through the passes or cross the 
fords and to burn Saxon farms and murder Saxon 
women. 

The religion of these English tribes differed from the 
religions of pagan Britain and Rome in almost everything 
except that it was essentially a nature-cult. As their cli- 
mate was sterner and their habits were severer, so were 
their deities of a harsher and more terrible type than 
those of Southern and Western Europe. They made 
obeisance to the sun and the moon and worshipped the 
god whose chariot-wheels were heard in the rolling 
thunder and the roaring storm. They loved the lord 
whose spear reeked with gore and whose face was cut 
with sea-foam. Their heaven was a Valhalla of heroes 
who had won immortality by deeds of valor and of 
blood; their hell, a pit for cowards and for traitors. 
Their legends were those of sanguinary warriors, of 
thirstful giants, of dragons, serpents and demons, and of 
remorseless, all-conquering, wolf-like chiefs. They were 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 2$$ 

superstitious, believing in charms, dreams, wizards and 
ghosts. The graces and the poetry of a gentler pagan- 
ism were absent ; they ate and drank grossly, and their 
cruel and excitable passions when in full play knew no 
restraints either of manly virtue or of pity for the help- 
less. Only in this impetuous fury and this maddened 
carnage did they feel themselves akin to Odin and Thor 
and worthy to drink of the skull-bowl of blood. 

Doubtless the peaceful occupation of farming and a 
life in a more genial climate greatly softened this dark 
type of paganism, but the degraded superstition and 
the debased moral life remained. The brave-hearted 
but ignorant Englishman could still fight with Briton 
to the fatal end, but his spirit quailed within him as he 
heard the moan of the demon in the forest and thought 
of the sick-dealing elf of the swamp. By the sacred 
well he besought the god of the water-springs not to 
harm him ; in the lone glen he made his incantations 
that the uncanny powers might be rendered helpless ; 
he offered sacrifices beside the graves of his ancestors 
and listened with awe to the weird chants and oracular 
utterances of his priests. Of sin as the Christian under- 
stands sin he knew next to nothing, while his soul was 
dull and joyless as are the very clouds which hide the 
autumnal sky. Selfishness, fear and aggression made 
him miserable and suspicious. He was persevering, 
courageous and constant; he was also brave as the 
wolf is brave, shrewd as the fox is shrewd, and at 
heart dark as is the flesh of swan. Such was the crea- 
tion of paganism. 

And yet there are times when out of that paganism 
springs a nobler note. It is probable that among his 



236 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

deities the heathen had a conception of one God who 
was supreme, the All-Father and the just and good ; and 
the myth of Baldur, though more Norse than Saxon 
and in its development and poetry more modern than 
the seventh century, is possibly an outcome and an exam- 
ple of some of the older and kindlier legends. The story 
runs somewhat thus : Baldur, the white god, whose 
face shone with splendor, whose brow was pure as the 
sunlight and whose soul was gentle and good though 
brave and warlike, was the beloved son of Odin and the 
favorite both of Valhalla and of earth. His wife was the 
virtuous and beautiful Nanna. It was foretold at his 
birth that unless all created objects made oath not to 
injure him he should die as mortals die; therefore Nan- 
na came to earth to win from the things which made up 
the earth a promise that none would harm him. But, as 
no god even is safe from envy, neither was Baldur. The 
evil-minded Utgard Loki also came to earth ; and when 
Nanna in her progress passed by the oak, he in the 
shape of a white crow sat upon a bough of mistletoe, so 
that she overlooked it and did not exact its pledge. 
Ever since, crows have been black, even as the silver- 
hued raven with snow-white feathers, according to clas- 
sical mythology, for its garrulity was likewise changed 
into the same sombre color. Loki then made an arrow 
of this branch of mistletoe, and one day, in heaven, when 
the gods were playfully discharging their weapons at 
Baldur, he placed his shaft in the bow of the blind god 
Hoder. The bow was drawn, and the arrow sped ; it 
struck Baldur as he stood against a bush. He fell. The 
bush was the holly, which can never fade, and which 
still bears the red drops of Baldur's blood. So the 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 237 

blood of Pyramus, soaking through the ground into the 
roots of the mulberry tree, changed the snowy fruit into 
a purple hue, to be darkened, when Thisbe should die, 
to coal-black. The goddess of the nether realm, Hela, 
now comes to claim him as her own, nor will she give 
up her right except upon condition that all created things 
agree to weep for him. So again Nanna descends to earth, 
bearing the fatal arrow on which to gather the tears of 
all Nature : which tears may still be seen in the berries 
of the mistletoe. But Utgard Loki again hides from her 
a tiny white flower which, though as she passed by it 
cried " Forget-me-not " and turned blue from disappoint- 
ment, was the cause of Baldur having to go into the 
dark, yew-shaded land of Hela. However, Odin pre- 
vails upon the queen of the black fog to release him for 
six months in every year. When the time comes for him 
to depart, the heavens weep, the birds are silent, the 
streams sob, the flowers droop and the trees drop their 
leaves ; when he returns, the sky is bright with glory, 
the woodlands are gay with song and the buds display 
their verdure and the blossoms their delights. 

Such is a Northern Nature-myth — perhaps too elabo- 
rate for a time so early as that with which we are now con- 
cerned and too full of classical touches to be entirely origi- 
nal, but possibly not altogether unlike some of the con- 
ceptions which were shaped in the minds of a part of the 
nobler and more thoughtful of the pagans. For the 
wild flora of the new land in which the English were 
now established was not unlike the wild flora of the 
present England ; and even as Greeks wondered why 
roses were red and hyacinths blue, so the Northerner, 
colder in imagination though he was, may have sought 



238 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

to find out the secret of the violet and the daisy, of the 
acorn-bloom and the ashen-keys. If the cry of the 
bittern and the pipe of the swan attracted him, had he 
no ear for the music of the nightingale or the song of 
the thrush ? But, so far as the masses were concerned, 
such stories had neither interest nor meaning. Refine- 
ment scarcely follows the plough, and poetry hardly 
belongs to the hewer of trees, the keeper of swine and 
the hunter of wolves and of thieves. They lay beneath 
the weight of the grossest things of heathenism ; they 
were of the earth, earthy ; and the sun spoke to them 
only of barley and mast, of light and heat, and not of 
mystic truths of hope, heaven, immortality and joy. 

To these people Christianity was practically unknown. 
Wide as the Church had extended her borders, she 
had not yet reached Germany or Scandinavia, and no 
attempt had been made to bring the pirates of the North 
Sea and the settlers of England under the influence of 
the cross. Nor did the British Church do more than 
sullenly abide within the mountain-retreats of the West ; 
not one step did it take toward the evangelization of the 
pagan conquerors. No missionary entered the land to 
uplift the Christ among the rude followers of Odin and 
Thor — partly, on the one side, because of the fierce, im- 
potent hatred, and partly, on the other side, perhaps 
because the English would not listen to the teachings 
of men of a defeated, and to some extent subject, race. 
So the dense darkness came over the country once more. 
Heathenism reigned where once Christianity had pre- 
vailed ; the people of a strange tongue and rough man- 
ner worshipped idols where formerly hymns to Christ 
had been sung, and ignorance and cruelty remained, and 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 239 

none spoke of peace. If once the ice-rivers of the North 
had stripped the country of its beauty, now the coldness 
of idolatry swept away every vestige of the faith, with- 
ered every hope of ecclesiastical glory and made the 
cross a strange thing. 

And thus, so far as British Christianity was concerned, 
it might have continued for ever, but the time came when 
the people that sat in darkness should see the great light. 
The weakness and the weariness of paganism were felt ; 
the English tribes were ready for something better to 
take its place. Yet when the good work began, the 
Briton had no part in it ; indeed, he sulkily refused to 
do aught toward its progress. Other churches were to 
lay the foundations of that Church which should be as 
a rose in the garden of the Lord and the peerless princess 
of Christendom. 

About the year 586 some English boys were exposed 
for sale in the Forum at Rome. How they had been 
brought from their native land — whether bought, stolen 
or captured — we know not, but, notwithstanding the 
efforts of the Church, the traffic in slaves, largely con- 
ducted by Jews, was still great. As in helpless misery 
and dread anticipation the fair-skinned and flaxen-haired 
lads from the North waited for a purchaser a noble-born 
and kind-hearted Roman passed by. He was a man of 
dignified appearance, mild countenance, ruddy face and 
thin dark hair ; by name, Gregorius. His rank, educa- 
tion and wealth made him conspicuous among the nobles 
of his city ; he had been distinguished in the Senate and 
had held high office ; but, touched by the power of the 
gospel, he had now given up the law for the Church, 
and had laid aside the silk attire, the glittering gems 



240 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and the purple-striped trabea with which he had once 
walked through the streets of Rome for the simple garb 
of a deacon. His great fortune he had devoted to 
Church purposes, and, resisting all temptations, in sin- 
gular humility and ascetical severity he sought to live 
out the higher and holier life. When he saw the Eng- 
lish slave-boys, his soul was moved with pity, and he 
inquired from whence they came. 

" From Britain," was the answer ; " the people there 
have these fair complexions." 

" Are the people of that island Christians or pagans ?" 
he asked. 

" Pagans." 

The countenance of the questioner saddened, and he 
sighed, 

"Alas," he exclaimed — "alas that such bright faces 
should be in the power of the prince of darkness, and 
that such grace of form should hide minds void of grace 
within ! How call you their nation ?" 

"Angles." 

" Well so called !" cried he, with a thoughtful playful- 
ness upon the name. " They have angels' faces, and it 
were meet they should be fellow-heirs with angels in 
heaven. What is the name of the province from which 
they came ?" 

" Deira " — that region between the Tees and the 
H umber roughly corresponding with the modern York- 
shire. 

" Right again !" the good man replied ; " de ira Dei 
eruti, et ad misericordiam Christi vocati " — plucked 
from the wrath of God and called to the mercy of 
Christ. 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 24 1 

The name of their king, the bystanders told him, was 
Aella. 

"Alleluia!" he answered as he proceeded on his way. 
" The praises of God the Creator must be sung in those 
parts ;" and so heavily weighed upon his mind the thought 
of the land of these English boys being in heathenism 
that he desired at once to go there as a missionary. 
That, however, could not be. He indeed obtained per- 
mission to set out — he started ; but the people of Rome 
clamored for his recall, and the bishop was forced to send 
for him. 

Greater work lay for Gregory in Rome — work for 
which his marvellous genius and his noble scholarship 
unmistakably qualified him, and work which none but 
he could do. A few years later, in 590, when he was 
about fifty years of age, he was made bishop of Rome 
and began that reign of wise consolidation, of pontifical 
splendor and of magnanimous administration which has 
fully justified his title of " Great." 

In these ages the glory of the Roman Church shone 
with purest lustre. Her devotion to the cause of Christ, 
her zeal and energy in the propagation of his gospel, 
her loyalty to the truth, her sacrifice of wealth and the 
ability of her rulers gave her an influence and a position 
among the churches, if not of supremacy, certainly of 
primacy. Nowhere were the clergy as learned and 
loyal as in Rome, and nowhere were edifices as grand 
and beautiful or services as perfect and ornate. The 
mysterious charm of the city on the Tiber had not yet 
passed away. If no longer the capital of the Empire, 
men still thought of it with respect and admired it with 
undiminished enthusiasm. And, now that its bishop was 

16 



242 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

fast rising into the position of pontifex maximiis — of an 
overlord of bishops and a vicar both of Christ and of 
Caesar — what wonder if the ignorant and impover- 
ished people of distant parts of the ecclesiastical world 
looked to him for help, and in matters of religion which 
they did not understand to him for guidance ? There 
was a great and mighty power, ever growing in great- 
ness and in might, living and strengthening itself upon 
the traditions and the precedents of the older empire, 
sending missionaries and supporting missions in foreign 
lands,, securing oftentimes its own nominations in outside 
bishoprics and benefices, profiting by the dissensions and 
the difficulties of princes and of peoples, proclaiming the 
faith and devising customs, assuming a position which 
none were potent enough to deny, and never losing 
ground which once it had gained. The beatings of 
that great heart were felt to the. remotest bounds of 
the religious world. When the times were dark and 
heresy and disorder were prevalent, Rome stood up for 
doctrine and maintained discipline. There for ages was 
maintained the pure faith of the gospel; there for ages 
were wrought good and glorious works. Lament and 
denounce her after-sins and terrible errors we well may, 
but in justice be it remembered that once she was indeed 
great, holy, true and good. 

For the first few years of his pontificate Gregory had 
more to think of than the conversion of England, but 
his purpose only needed opportunity for its realization. 
He directed some of the funds of his Church estates in 
Gaul to be spent in buying English lads of seventeen or 
eighteen that they might be trained up in the faith and 
sent to England as missionaries. He made inquiries 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 243 

concerning the state of the country, the nature of its 
kingdoms and the disposition of its kings. He found 
that Kent presented the most favorable opening; its 
king, Ethelbert, not only had married a Christian 
princess, but also had allowed her the free exercise of 
her religion, and, though not converted, he was sup- 
posed to be not unfavorable thereto. The good queen 
Bertha had a bishop for her chaplain, and for her chapel 
the little Roman-British church of St. Martin, outside 
the walls of Canterbury. She was not unmindful of her 
duty toward the heathen. Her example and her con- 
versation led many to think kindly of Christianity; 
some, indeed, besought the Gallic bishops to send them 
instructors, but either indifference or fear prevented a 
response. This was Gregory's chance. In 596 he 
selected Augustine, provost of his own monastery of 
St. Andrew, on the Ccelian Hill, and forty of the breth- 
ren, to go on a direct mission to Kent. 

The company set out in the summer of that year, 
and, having crossed the Alps, reached Aix, in Provence. 
Here, heartily welcomed by the brethren, they rested in 
the sacred and venerable house of Lerins, and here they 
learned something of the difficulties of the work to 
which they were sent. Their hearts failed them when 
told of the roughness of the country, the obstacles of 
the language and the hard, fierce nature of the people. 
They even sent back Augustine to beseech Gregory to 
release them from a journey so full of perils, toils and 
uncertainties. But Gregory was not the man to with- 
draw from a work upon which his soul was bent. Au- 
gustine returned to the brethren bearing from him a let- 
ter in which the beauty, gentleness and energy of his 



244 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

mind are touchingly displayed. He exhorts his " most 
beloved sons " not to be deterred by rumors and perils, 
but to finish the good work begun, " knowing that a 
greater glory of eternal reward follows a great labor." 
With sweet affection he commends them to the protec- 
tion of the grace of the omnipotent God, and with a 
joyfulness and a delicacy no less delightful he hopes 
that " in the eternal country he may see the fruit of 
their labor, and because he had wished to work he may 
be found together with them in the joy of reward." 
Thus encouraged, and furnished with commendatoiy 
letters to bishops on the way, the company again pro- 
ceeded. Augustine was made the authoritative director 
of the society, so that any further reference to Gregory, 
and the consequent delay, might be avoided. And when 
winter was over, soon after the Easter- tide of 597, they 
set sail for the coasts of Ethelbert's kingdom. 

The landing was effected at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle 
of Thanet, traditionally the spot where Hengist first 
touched the British soil. Thence Augustine sent a 
message to the king declaring the nature of the embas- 
sy and requesting audience of him. Ethelbert received 
the messengers kindly and courteously ; he ordered the 
strangers to be furnished with all necessaries, and soon 
after he went down to Thanet to hear what Augustine 
had to say. There he was met by the missionaries, who 
carried a picture of Christ and a silver cross and chanted 
a litany. Fearful of magic, Ethelbert remained in the 
open air and there listened to the first words of the 
Christians. An impression was made, but, as he said, 
not sufficient to induce him lightly to forsake the faith 
of his ancestors. However, he bade them welcome, 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 245 

gave them permission to preach to his people and in- 
vited them to abide in his city. 

In triumph Augustine and his brethren approached 
the then rude Canterbury. It was the week of the 
Ascension, and as they passed down the hill on which 
stands the church of St. Martin the cross was uplifted 
and the company chanted a pathetic antiphon. By the 
gates the shout of " Alleluia !" went up to heaven. Now 
should another kingdom be added to the kingdoms of 
God and of his Christ ; now should be laid the founda- 
tions of a Church which was destined in time to be as 
glorious as any in Christendom. In the lodgings allot- 
ted them they lived quietly and soberly, setting forth the 
graces of the new religion and remaining instant in 
prayer, fastings and watchings. Nor were the heathen 
unaffected. Bede adds, " Some believed and were bap- 
tized, admiring the simplicity of their innocent life and 
the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." Before long 
the king resolved to accept Christianity, so that by bap- 
tism, according to the words of the service then used, 
•■' he might be born again into the infancy of true inno- 
cence " and be " strengthened by the clear shining of 
the Holy Spirit." His conversion was important and 
his example was great, but he was taught not to compel 
others to do as he had done, for Gregory had written, 
" He who is brought to the font by coercion instead of 
persuasion is but too likely to relapse." Ethelbert, there- 
fore, contented himself by clinging to the believers with 
a more close love, " as being his fellow-citizens of the 
heavenly kingdom." In the autumn Augustine went to 
Aries, where by the metropolitan Virgilius he was con- 
secrated first archbishop of Canterbury, and on his re- 



246 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

turn the king gave him for a residence his own palace, 
built of wood, near which was a desecrated church 
erected "by the handiwork of Roman Christians." 
This he restored and rededicated " in the name of the 
Holy Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord and God," and 
this was the nucleus of " Christ Church," the mother- 
church of English Christianity and the metropolitan 
church of the land from the Cheviots to the rocks of 
Cornwall. To the " cathedral " he attached a home for 
his monks, and around the church of St. Pancras — for 
long used by the heathen English as a temple, and lying 
halfway toward St. Martin — he established a monastery 
dedicated to St. Peter, but now known by his own name. 
On Christmas-day upward of ten thousand converts were 
baptized in the waters of the Swale, near the mouth of 
the Med way, and, in the spring of 598, Augustine sent 
to Gregory an account of the progress and success of 
his mission. 

The good bishop was overjoyed with the intelligence, 
and not only proceeded to give further directions for the 
carrying on, of the work, but also sought to find for it 
more laborers. He instructed Augustine to divide the 
country into two provinces, each to contain twelve bish- 
oprics — the one under the metropolitan of London, and 
the other under the metropolitan of York. The new 
Church was to adopt a ritual of its own, and not neces- 
sarily the Roman. The British Church was to be re- 
garded as under the jurisdiction of Augustine, and was 
to be urged to conform itself to Catholic usage and to 
take part in the conversion of the English. Finally, in 
June, 601, Gregory sent four men — Mellitus, Justus, 
Paulinus and Rufinianus — to help in the work. 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 247 

But Augustine's mission was almost at an end. It 
went but little beyond the confines of Kent, nor would 
the British bishops, who still sulked among the Welsh 
mountains, either acknowledge his authority or take part 
in his labors. In March, 604, Gregory died, and two 
months afterward Augustine also went the way of all 
flesh. All that he had done, notwithstanding the bril- 
liant promise, was the opening of the door into England. 
He was devout, honest, laborious and loyal, but neither 
by nature adapted for a work demanding breadth of 
mind and foresight nor successful in commanding or 
influencing men. Nor have the generations since done 
more than respect him for having been the first of a 
line of prelates which continues to this day, and for 
having begun a work which, carried on by others, was 
splendid in its consequences. He was succeeded by a 
fellow-missionary, Laurentius, in whose episcopate Ethel- 
bert died, and for a brief while the kingdom lapsed into 
paganism. 

Indeed, an incoming tide of reaction threatened speed- 
ily to overwhelm the entire enterprise with failure. Ob- 
stacles multiplied with amazing rapidity. The whole 
land north of the Thames and west of the Mole, still in 
heathen gloom and harassed by divisions and strifes, 
was untouched ; yet with the toilers of the Kentish mis- 
sion the Gallic Church had little sympathy, and the 
British Christians none whatever. No success or no 
failure of others aroused the latter from their lethargy. 
Ere long it was difficult to know whether they hated 
more the English pagans than the Italian missionaries ; 
at any rate, they contented themselves with stealing 
sheep and burning villages along the borders. But the 



248 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR K 

prayers of a Gregory were not to go unanswered. Once 
more the flood began to ebb. The new king of Kent 
became Christian and threw himself heartily into the 
work — so heartily, indeed, that when Edwin, king of 
Northumbria and son of that Aella who had occasioned 
Gregory's il Alleluia," desired of him his sister Ethel- 
burga in marriage, Eadbald replied, u I cannot give my 
sister to a heathen; my religion forbids it," and this 
noble refusal led to another onward step in the conver- 
sion of England. 

Edwin was thoughtful, cautious, reticent and vigilant. 
He had suffered much in securing his kingdom ; he was 
now willing to suffer something to secure his wife. He 
promised that she and her attendants should keep their 
own religion and have their own clergy and worship ; 
possibly, should his wise men pronounce her faith better 
than his own, he might adopt it. To this Eadbald con- 
sented; and in the late summer of 625, Paulinus was 
consecrated bishop and sent with the princess to her 
Northern home. The king kept the first part of his 
promise and neglected the second. He treated the 
bishop with all respect and allowed him to exercise his 
office, but he did not show any disposition to examine 
his creed. Paulinus soon found that he had little to do 
but to keep from heathenism the few Christians about 
him. He was of an earnest spirit, pure in mind and 
warm in heart, zealous enough to endure hardship for 
the cross of Christ and wise enough to know that 
"they also serve who only stand and wait." 

It was not so long before his chance came. On the 
Easter-eve of 626 a daughter was born to Edwin. The 
same day the king, by the interposition of a faithful 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 249 

retainer, had been saved from assassination. Overjoyed 
by these happy events, Edwin promised Paulinus that 
should he return successful from a war against Wessex 
he would take Christ for his Lord, and as an earnest he 
gave over the infant to be baptized. Accordingly, on 
Whitsun-eve, with eleven others of her household, the 
little princess — first of the Northumbrian race — was re- 
ceived into the Church. But Edwin went to Wessex, 
slew five of its princes, returned home triumphant and 
left Christianity alone. Still, he listened to the plead- 
ings of the bishop and pondered seriously the great alter- 
native either of giving up the gods or of accepting Christ. 
Finally he consulted his chief friends and counsellors : 
what did they think of this new religion ? The chief 
pagan priest, Coifi, declared that he had profited noth- 
ing by the gods, and therefore would advise trying the 
new lore. One of the thanes, however, more nearly 
expressed the want which weighed most upon heathen 
hearts — that strange, bewildering mystery of life. " I 
will tell you, O king," he said, " what methinks man's 
life is like. Sometimes, when your hall is lit up for sup- 
per on a wild winter's evening and warmed by a fire in 
the midst, out of the rain and snow a sparrow flies in by 
one door, takes shelter for a moment in the warmth, and 
then flies out again by another door and is lost in the 
stormy darkness. No one in the hall sees the bird be- 
fore it enters nor after it has gone forth ; it is only seen 
while it hovers near the fire. So tarries for a moment 
the life of man in our sight, but what has gone before 
it, what will come after it, we know not. If the new 
teaching tells us aught certainly of these, let us follow 
it." Such words deeply impressed those who heard 



250 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

them ; then Coifi proposed that Paulinus should before 
them all set forth his doctrine. The tall and venerable 
bishop at once arose and with grace and dignity preached 
to them the Lord Jesus. His message reached their 
hearts. The chief priest exclaimed, " This is the truth ; 
I see it shining out clearly in this teaching. Let us de- 
stroy these useless temples and altars and give them up 
to the curse and flame." All the nobles agreed with the 
king to accept Christianity, and together they passed 
through the preparation of catechumens. Then, on 
Easter-eve, April n, 627, in a little chapel hastily built 
of wood upon ground now covered by the glorious min- 
ster of York, Edwin, his princes and thanes and his grand- 
niece Hilda received holy baptism. The spring of water 
still flows in the crypt of the great church. 

Thus was Christianity founded in Northumbria. Un- 
der Edwin the kingdom had peace, and justice was so 
well administered that it was said a woman with her 
infant could pass unharmed from sea to sea. He built 
churches and did all he could to help on the evangel- 
ization of his people. By his efforts the gospel was 
preached in East Anglia, and partly by Felix from the 
Kentish mission and partly by some brethren — of whom 
the learned and holy Fursey was chief — from the Irish 
Church this kingdom was brought over to Christian- 
ity. Paulinus was made archbishop of York, and for six 
years he went through the land proclaiming the Christ 
and baptizing many converts. But, as in Kent, reverses 
came. In the autumn of 633, Penda, king of Mercia, a 
cruel and bitter pagan, and Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd, 
as cruel and bitter an adherent of the British Church, 
united in an invasion of Northumbria. A battle was 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 25 I 

fought at Hatfield, October 12, and Edwin was slain. 
Forthwith his kingdom was at the mercy of the allies. 
The Mercians, infuriated with victory, burnt and tore 
down every church they found ; as for the British king, 
Christian though he was, we read, " He spared neither 
women nor children, but put them to torturing deaths, 
raging for a long time through all the country, and 
resolving that he would be the man to exterminate the 
whole English race within the bounds of Britain." Thus 
was Northumbria subjected to the ravages of two kings 
who, though they differed in race and in religion, were 
one in the art and the purpose of devastation and blood- 
shed. Christianity was suppressed and all but destroyed. 
Paulinus fled to Kent, ana was made bishop of Roches- 
ter. Then in a year's time arose a defender of North- 
umbrian freedom, Oswald, the pure and noble, brave 
in war and wise in council, a devout Christian, and to 
him was given the mastery over his country's foes and 
the crown of his country's kings. 

As soon as Oswald had secured the throne he began 
the restoration of Christianity. He did not send to Kent 
for missionaries, much less to the British Church, but to 
Iona, where once he had found a refuge. This was a 
small island off the coast of Scotland, out in the dark 
and stormy Atlantic. There a community had been 
formed by the holy Columba — one who with St. Pat- 
rick wrought so much and so well for the foundation 
of the ancient and ever-glorious Church of Ireland. 
He had died about the time that Augustine began his 
work in Kent, but the missionary zeal of the brethren 
had in no wise diminished. They at once sent to North- 
umbria a brother, Corman by name, but he soon returned 



252 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

with complaints of the stubborn and impracticable peo- 
ple among whom he had labored. " It is of no use/' 
he said, " to attempt to convert such people as they are." 
The community listened to him with sadness ; it seemed 
as if night had fallen upon Iona. To the brethren came 
the shuddering as of the sea at the skimming of the 
breeze. Then one stood up and quietly remonstrated. 
" My brother," he said, " thou hast been too austere and 
severe. The people there know but little and have had 
but few opportunities to learn. Thou shouldst have re- 
membered the apostle's words and nourished them first as 
babes with the milk of God's word, with its simplest and 
plainest precepts. Then, afterward, they had been able 
to receive more advanced instruction and a sublimer 
teaching." All looked at the speaker. It was Aidan, 
the gentle, simple and holy. Surely he was the one to 
send ; so they consecrated him, and in the summer of 
635 he sailed for the wild Northumbrian land. 

The love of Aidan for Iona was shown in his selecting 
as the headquarters of his mission, rather than York, 
the island of Lindisfarne, near Bamborough. Here he 
founded a brotherhood and a school for the education 
of English youths. He sent out missionaries through 
the country, exemplified in his own life the beauty of 
Christianity, and began again that work which in the 
end resulted in the entire conversion of the northern 
kingdom. After sixteen years of toil he entered into 
his rest, and another ruler from Iona, Finan, took up 
his work. The light spread farther. Peada, the son of 
the old pagan Penda, was attracted to one of the prin- 
cesses of Northumbria, and thus he came to think 
kindly of the religion his father had done so much to 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 253 

destroy. When told that he could not have Alchfled 
for a wife unless he became Christian, he replied, " I will 
be a Christian, whether I have the maiden or not." 
Finan baptized him, and under his protection sent four 
missionaries into Mercia. Penda suffered them to 
preach, though he himself held fast to his gods. One 
of the missionaries, Cedd, went on into East Anglia; 
another, Diuma, won renown among the Christian heroes 
of Mid-England. Then the restless Penda began another 
war for the subjugation of Northumbria and the destruc- 
tion of Christianity. A battle was fought on November 
J 5» 655> and in it Penda was killed. With him fell the 
political power of paganism. Henceforth the Church 
had (tqq course in Mercia, nor since the battle of Win- 
widneld has any secular authority in Britain formally 
disowned the faith of Christ. 

Already had Wessex received the gospel from the 
Roman missionary Birinus ; so that by this time Chris*- 
tianity had laid a firm hold upon the people of the sev- 
eral English kingdoms. In these labors the workers 
came from two churches — some from Rome, and others 
from Ireland ; none from the British Church. It con- 
tinued in selfish isolation, hating England and defying 
Rome, until in the course of centuries, dying, it fell into 
the arms of the one and acknowledged the supremacy 
of the other. For long much paganism remained, but 
mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. Later, 
Chad and Cuthbert entered the field. The rough Eng- 
lish listened to the tidings of the white Christ, and as 
they listened they were changed — changed somewhat 
into the image of Him of whom they heard. Before the 
glory of the gospel the dark shades of ignorance and 



254 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

superstition began to pass away ; the old gods were dis- 
owned and their altars were dishonored ; warriors gray 
with years and stained with blood sat down with women 
and children at the feet of the messengers of Christ, and 
the land began to enter into its Sabbath rest. Surely 
a mighty regeneration had been wrought ! and from 
many a distant valley, from deep forest and dreary wild, 
and from the side of mountain, stream and sea, arose 
prayer and hymn to the Lord Jesus, and everywhere 
the symbol of the cross and the sound of the bell pro- 
claimed that the land of Odin had passed over to Christ, 
and that the English people had become Christian. 

Many are the holy ones who adorned those times, but 
we may glance only at two just mentioned. St. Chad 
was a Northumbrian Christian brought up at Lindisfarne, 
and in 664 was consecrated bishop of York by Wini of 
Wessex, who succeeded in inducing two British bishops 
to assist; but, some irregularity being detected in the act, 
five years later he resigned the see. The same year, 
669, he was by the archbishop of Canterbury ordained 
bishop of Mercia. His life there was beautiful with all 
the graces of evangelical piety and zeal. He journeyed 
through his vast diocese on foot, suffering with apostolic 
fortitude many perils and preaching with apostolic fer- 
vor the glad tidings of Christ. He was fond of singing, 
and he and his company were wont as they wandered 
along the roads of that Staffordshire country to chant 
the psalms of David. The people learned to love him. 
Three years only did he labor ; then, at Lichfield, March 
2, 672, he passed into the better land — or, as Bede lov- 
ingly puts it, " his hallowed soul, being freed from the 
prison of the body, went under the guidance, as it is 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 2$$ 

right to believe, of attendant angels to eternal joys." A 
week before his death his servitor Ouini heard a sound 
of angelic melody coming from the south-west, until it 
reached and filled the oratory where he was praying. 
" The lovable guest," said the good bishop ; " ere long 
the messenger will return." And far away, in Ireland, one 
Egbert, who had been a fellow-student, dreamt that he 
saw the soul of Cedd, the apostle of East Anglia, descend 
from heaven with a company of angels to take the freed 
spirit of Chad into the heavenly kingdom. The memory 
of the saint is still green in the midland counties, where 
the cathedral and thirty-one parish churches are ded- 
icated to him. 

Of even more exquisite beauty is the character of St. 
Cuthbert. He too was a Northumbrian, from beyond 
the Tweed, and we first hear of him when a shepherd in 
the hill-country upon the banks of the Leader. Though 
of a witty disposition, fond of feats of agility and decid- 
edly poetical, he had a deep consciousness of the Unseen 
and an abiding reverence for religion. One night in 65 1, 
while watching his flock and singing hymns, he sud- 
denly beheld in the skies the bright light of angels. 
They came to earth, and again ascended bearing with 
them a spirit of surpassing glory. He told his com- 
rades ; they laughed and said the display was that of 
failing stars or Northern Lights. But later he learned 
that at that time St. Aidan of Lindisfarne had died, and 
the vision became to him a call to a higher life. He 
went to Melrose and sought admission to the brother- 
hood. They made him a monk, and thirteen years later 
sent him to Lindisfarne. Here for twelve years he 
ruled that famous community ; two years he then spent 



Z$6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

in seclusion upon an island six miles away, and on 
Easter-day, 685, he was consecrated bishop of the region 
extending from the North Sea to the Solway and north- 
ward to the Frith of Forth. His episcopate was bril- 
liant, but short. On the Wednesday after Midlent- 
Sunday, 687, he was called to rest. By his patience, his 
good sense, his playfulness of soul, his unchanging faith 
and his holy life he made a deep impression upon his 
contemporaries. The splendor of his fame has grown 
with the ages. Legends have clustered around him, 
and there is to-day in the British Museum the book of 
the Gospels which he and his brethren at Lindisfarne 
used, bearing upon its leaves the stains of the sea- water 
incurred during a wreck which a little later befell the 
community. His remains still rest within the Cathedral 
of Durham. 

Much had been done for the English ; much remained 
to be done. As yet the work was in fragments. The 
bishoprics were as much isolated as were the kingdoms. 
Confusion soon began. There were differences of cus- 
toms, doctrine and administration, and the time came 
when the choice lay between Christianity disintegrated, 
chaotic, and a strong, united and compact organization. 
Should there be one Church for the whole people, or a 
separate Church for each petty principality ? Further, 
should that Church conform to the practices of a Church 
outside of continental Christianity, or to the customs of 
one alive to the age and loyal to the faith and the pre- 
cepts of Nicaea? Both questions were settled by the 
appointment of Theodore of Tarsus to the see of Can- 
terbury. 

This remarkable man was consecrated in 66S by Pope 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 2$ J 

Vitalian. Upon taking charge of his jurisdiction, though 
an old man, he set vigorously to work, He sought to 
reconcile the varying theories of doctrine, to bring the in- 
dependent dioceses under a central authority, and to cor- 
rect the carelessness which had prevailed concerning 
confirmation and ordination. He settled the rule as to 
the keeping of Easter, the mode of baptism, the duties 
of the regular and secular clergy and the methods of 
conducting divine worship. He assumed for Canterbury 
supremacy over all other sees within the island, and de- 
voted his indomitable energies and wisely-directed zeal 
to the establishment of his claim. He travelled through- 
out the length and the breadth of the island, dividing 
and defining dioceses and parishes, dedicating afresh 
churches which not been properly set apart, directing 
the work of the clergy in each locality, administering 
discipline and deciding disputes, always insisting upon 
his own archiepiscopal see as the visible centre of unity 
and the keystone in the arch upon which all depended. 
Everywhere the people received him enthusiastically, 
recognized the wisdom of his reforms and carried out 
the measures he proposed. Thus by his firmness of 
purpose, his genius and his wonderful personality he 
stayed the disintegrating process and brought about that 
uniformity which was essential to unity. In 673 he held 
the first synod of the Church of England — that of Hert- 
ford, the prototype of our later ecclesiastical and national 
assemblies. His attempts to remove the reproach of an 
unlearned clergy resulted in the foundation of a school 
at Canterbury where, under himself and other efficient 
masters, instruction was given in the sacred Scriptures 
and the Liturgy, in reading and writing, and in Latin, 
17 



258 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Greek, arithmetic and astronomy. In the twenty-two 
years of his rule he supplied England with an episcopate 
every member of which he personally consecrated. Never 
again came in an Irish or a British ordination to interfere 
with the clear and undeniable succession from the see 
of St. Peter; never again in England did bishop rule 
whose orders were not in that Roman line. Before his 
episcopate ended he saw among the English people a 
united Church in which were thorough organization, 
uniformity of faith and practice, considerable learning, 
marked piety of life and growing zeal. The debt which 
the Church of England owes to Theodore of Tarsus, 
seventh archbishop of Canterbury and the friend of Con- 
stans, is second in extent to none which is due to other 
prelates and administrators who helped to make her 
what she is to-day. 

And now was the land of the once fierce and pagan 
English Christian. A century and a half before the 
kingdoms were made into one realm there was one 
Church over all ; a century and a half before there was 
a king of all England the archbishop of Canterbury 
ruled from the cliffs of Dover to the mountains of Cum- 
bria, from the confines of the Britons to the shores of 
the North Sea. Older than Parliaments, that Church 
was not created by Parliaments ; older than the State, 
that Church was not established by the State. Doomed 
to pass through many changes and to need many re- 
formations, she was also destined to pass through the 
ages an intact and unbroken body. The Church of 
Augustine and of Theodore lives to-day, the queenly 
mother of our own American Church, and, echoing to 
the "Alleluia" of Gregory uttered thirteen hundred 



THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 259 

years ago, arise the " Alleluias " from many a shore and 
many a distant land, proclaiming that this great, all- 
powerful and living Anglo-Saxon race recognizes Jesus 
as its Lord and his cross as its salvation. 

An old legend runs that God preserved in the beauti- 
ful red rose the burning sparks which came from the 
martyrs' fires, and the people of the Middle Ages told 
of heroic witnesses for the faith whose blood, falling on 
glowing embers, lived and was preserved for ever in that 
lovely flower. But in God's garden there is no sweeter, 
richer rose, none more beauteous — not so much for its 
crimson stains of martyred blood as for the radiance of 
faith and love which fall upon it from the divine Lord — 
than the one which grew out of the life's work of these 
spiritual heroes. The little island-Church planted amid 
the thorns of the wilderness and the solitude of the 
desert has become the beauty of Christendom and an 
everlasting witness to the power of the heavenly grace. 



CHAPTER X. 

j5t (ffiutfjlac antr tije Etfceg nf ©roglantr. 

Toward the end of the seventh century, Guthlac, a 
youth of princely Mercian blood, sought in the midst 
of the wild and solitary fenland a place where he might 
serve God alone and in peace. He had been remark- 
able from his cradle. At his birth was seen in the sky 
the prodigy of a hand of fiery brilliancy pointing to the 
cross standing before his mother's house; whereupon 
he received holy baptism. As a child he was gentle, 
sweet-tempered and dutiful, as if " irradiated by spirit- 
ual light ;" but when he grew up, the war-spirit mani- 
fested itself, and his early years were spent, after the 
manner of his time and his race, in rude and lawless 
enterprises. With a band of like-minded followers he 
went hither and thither through the land, pillaging and 
burning the homes of the thrifty, invading and ransack- 
ing villages and towns, and spreading untold misery 
along the broad trail of blood and rapine, though it was 
afterward said — such was the natural kindness of his dis- 
position — that he always returned a third part of the 
plunder to those who had possessed the property. 

But the day of repentance came to the young chief- 
tain. After eight years of this ferocious life — in 697, 
when twenty-four years of age — as, surrounded by his 
warriors, he one night lay sleepless in the forest, he be- 

260 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 26 1 

thought himself of the crimes he had done and the woe 
he had wrought. Before his mind arose the vision of 
the doom which awaited such as he, and as he pondered 
upon the vanity of this world's glory and upon the 
teachings and warnings of the missionaries of the cross, 
he resolved by the grace of God to abandon his sins and 
to devote the rest of his days to the service of his Re- 
deemer. In the morning he bade his comrades fare- 
well and, heedless of their remonstrances, hasted to 
Repton, on the banks of the Trent, where was a commu- 
nity of men and women ruled by an abbess named 
Elfrida. Here Guthlac offered himself a penitent at 
the altar, received the monastic habit and shore off the 
long hair which marked his noble rank. At first his 
extreme abstemiousness offended the brethren, among 
whom discipline seems to have been lax. With the 
" apostolic tonsure " he took up the rule of " total ab- 
stinence," and save in time of communion never tasted 
wine or strong drink. But by his modest and affection- 
ate disposition and his desire to imitate the more mod- 
erate virtues of the other inmates of the house, he speed- 
ily disarmed all animosity. They who saw Guthlac the 
monk remembered not Guthlac the warrior, so beauti- 
fully did the divine love illuminate his soul and so com- 
plete the transformation of his character. In the quiet 
cloisters he learned psalms and hymns and studied the 
lives of the anchorets ; then to him came the longing 
for solitude. He would emulate the virtues of that 
Alexandrian Paul who spent ninety years in the desert 
of the Thebaid ; he would walk in the footsteps of the 
glorious Antony — the man of the sheepskin and the 
rock, the friend of brutes and the vanquisher of demons, 



262 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

whose austerity and holiness won for him imperishable 
fame and made him the exemplar of all who would live 
away from the world. Accordingly, " with the leave of his 
elders," in the early June days he set out for the swamps 
and marshes which lay on the eastern borders of Mercia, 
in the lonely and dismal depths of which he hoped to 
find some quiet and unknown islet where he might spend 
his remaining years in prayer and meditation. On reach- 
ing Grantchester (near Cambridge) he heard of an island 
in the very heart of the vast wilderness, forsaken by man, 
but frequented by hosts of malignant and monstrous 
spirits. The soul of the warrior revived : he would 
search for the uncanny spot, take up his abode there 
and do battle against the powers of darkness. Enter- 
ing into a small boat and committing himself to the pro- 
tection of Providence and the guidance of a fisherman 
— Tatwin by name, who knew the place and had been 
driven therefrom by " monsters of the wilderness and 
awesome shapes of divers kinds " — he was wafted along 
the dreary, dark; wandering streams and through the ter- 
rible solitude to the island known as Croyland, or, more 
properly, Cruland, Crudeland or Crowland. It was a 
slightly-elevated ground hidden amongst the tall reeds, 
surrounded by the black sluggish waters and frequently 
buried within the heavy folds of dense and unwholesome 
fogs. Guthlac, however, took up his abode there on St. 
Bartholomew's day, in the warm and pleasant August 
month, when the fenland appeared in the height of its 
glory — a time when grass and trees were green, and 
wild-birds passed in flocks hither and thither, and the 
water seemed alive with fish and frogs, and the sky 
was full of tender tints. 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 263 

The place, though now uninhabited, had once been 
frequented by man, for Guthlac found there the ruins 
of a burying-yard and a mound which some one eager to 
find treasure had dug into. It was lonely enough now, 
and the very paradise for a hermit. Well satisfied with 
the spot, Guthlac went back to Repton, bade his brother- 
monks good-bye, and in three months' time, with two 
boys, hastened to his retreat in the marshland. This 
was in 699. That the love for solitude ran in the family, 
or that the example thus set was contagious, is shown 
by Guthlac's sister Pega later in life taking up her abode 
as a recluse in another part of the fens four leagues off 
to the west — a good soul, by the way, whose sanctity 
was shown both by her sufferings of cold and hunger 
at Pegeland and by the bells of Rome ringing of their 
own accord for one hour on her entering that city. 

Amongst the ruins of the graveyard Guthlac built his 
hut and began his hermit-life. Before long his peace 
was disturbed. We shall probably say that the wisp- 
fires and the wild sounds of winter nights among the 
fens, together with intermittent attacks of marsh-fever 
and the constant practice of severe penances, caused the 
fancies of fiendish visitation and onslaught ; but Guthlac, 
like St. Antony, St. Dunstan and Martin Luther, was sat- 
isfied of the objective presence and the physical assaults 
of the prince of evil and of myriads of his imps. The 
place, indeed, swarmed with clouds of demons whose 
wicked delight was to provoke and beguile poor hon- 
est Guthlac. They danced and sang on the roof of his 
cell, appeared to him in divers forms, played him all 
sorts of unpleasant tricks — such as tossing him into 
muddy streams and dragging him through thorny thick- 



264 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

ets — and once they seized him bodily and carried him 
off to the icy North and showed him the gates of hell. 
This last exploit proved wellnigh fatal to the unfortunate 
man, for his adversaries had previously scourged him 
with iron whips and frightened him with many perplex- 
ing sights, but he had presence enough of mind to dare 
them to drop him into the burning pit, and in a moment 
his patron and protector, St. Bartholomew, came in glory 
to the rescue. He made the demons carry the good man 
back again to the home in the wild. On the way Guth- 
lac heard angels singing and playing their harps. 

The hermit wore skins instead of linen or wool, and 
had one daily meal only, of bread and water ; but even 
this meagre food was not pleasing to the imps of dark- 
ness. Two of them one day appeared to him in human 
form and tempted him to stand on his feet and abstain 
from all refreshment for six days. They argued that as 
God formed the world in six days and rested on the sev- 
enth day, so man ought to replenish his spirit by fasting 
six days, and eat on the seventh day for the refreshment 
of his body. But Guthlac retained his faith and cheer- 
fulness, and was not to be caught napping. He replied, 
" Let them be turned backward who seek my soul to 
destroy it ;" and when the evil spirits retired, filling that 
region with sad lamentations, Guthlac ate his barley- 
bread in peace. 

After a while these ghostly enemies were effectually 
vanquished, and Guthlac had some leisure to devote to 
the friendship of the brute creation around him. The 
fowls of the air soon became familiar with him; the 
timid swallows perched upon his shoulders and knees 
and nestled in confidence within the thatch of his lowly 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 265 

dwelling. Even the wild birds would eat from his 
hands, and the fishes of the marsh would swim to the 
banks and take worms and crumbs from his fingers. 
Thus, like the saint of Assisi in later times, he recov- 
ered that communion with the lower creation which pop- 
ular opinion long held had been lost at the time of the 
Fall in Eden. He may even have been able to disci- 
pline his feathered friends as others did theirs. A peni- 
tent raven — for aught we know, some kin to the famous 
Jackdaw of Rheims — once presented St. Cuthbert with 
a large piece of lard such as was used for greasing 
wheels, by way of atonement for having pulled some 
straw out of his roof in order to build a nest. Possibly 
Guthlac had read of the ravens feeding Paul and Antony 
in the Egyptian wilderness as they did Elijah at the brook 
Cherith ; possibly, also, of the burial of Paul, already 
referred to ; any way, the love of the hermit of Croy- 
land for the birds and the fishes does his heart credit 
and speaks well for the gentleness and humanity of his 
character. He who could win the affection of the cold- 
blooded pike which lived in the black stream ought to 
be able to win all men's esteem. When his friend Wil- 
frid expressed surprise at the kindliness existing between 
Guthlac and the fowl, Guthlac said, " He who in clean- 
ness of heart is one with God, all things are one with 
him ; he who denies himself the converse of men wins 
the converse of birds and beasts and the company of 
angels." 

Besides the power to subdue demons and to win 
brutes, the recluse had also the gift of discerning spir- 
its. A cleric named Beccelin came to live with him as 
his servant — a man evidently of a covetous disposition 



266 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and of evil impulses. He envied Guthlac his fame and 
his possessions, and one day, when he was shaving his 
master, the temptation came sorely upon him to cut his 
throat. Guthlac read his servant's mind, and immediately 
bade him " spit out the venom " of this wicked thought. 
The man fell on his knees and confessed all. 

With the sanctity of Guthlac his renown increased 
and his power of seclusion diminished. Pilgrims came 
to consult with him, to obtain an interest in his prayers 
and benedictions, and to see for themselves so exalted 
an example of devotion. At his knees knelt visitors 
of all kinds — princes, bishops, abbots and monks, lordly 
thegns and poor serfs, not only from the neighboring dis- 
tricts of Mercia, but also from the remoter parts of Britain. 
They told him of their sorrows and their perplexities, and 
the man who, his disciple said, was never angry, excited or 
sad, comforted and counselled them and filled the hungry 
heart with good things. Thus, like Antony in the des- 
ert and Cuthbert at Fame, he exercised his ministry of 
consolation and showed that " the superstitious form 
impressed by circumstances upon his devotion had not 
dulled his moral insight nor chilled his discriminating 
sympathy." About 704, Heddi, bishop of Lichfield, 
visited Croyland ; and when he had been refreshed with 
the conversation of the recluse, he gave him ordination. 
Ethelbald, a prince of his own noble family, when bit- 
terly pursued by his king fled to Guthlac for advice and 
for protection. The hermit both admonished him and 
prophesied that ere long he should sit upon the throne 
of Mercia ; whereupon Ethelbald is said to have vowed 
that so soon as he attained to this exalted honor he 
would upon that spot build and endow a monastery to 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 267 

the praise of almighty God, and to the memory of his 
good Father and confessor Guthlac. 

There is no need to suppose that a direct miracle was 
wrought in the conversion of the mere of reeds and rushes 
in which Guthlac planted the cross into a pleasant and 
habitable island. In the exuberance of their piety the 
old chroniclers ignored all that men did to make the 
wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose, regarding the 
means used as insignificant beside the blessings which 
God gave. The Venerable Bede tells of marvellous 
things which Cuthbert did ; and when a region once 
waste and dreary had been made delightful to the eye 
and useful to the wants of man, the old monks loved to 
think of it as done rather in some supernatural way 
than as the result of their own toil and foresight. Yet 
the hermit could not abide in his solitude without hard 
work. He had to labor for his daily bread even in the 
fenland teeming with wildfowl and with fish. Provision 
had to be made against the storms of winter and the 
chills of night, and he who lived in the marsh had to 
watch and prepare for the rising of the water. Other 
solitaries had been wiser than Guthlac. Fifty years 
earlier Saxulf had gone into the same district, but, with 
more practical worldliness, he had chosen the pleasant 
and fruitful Medeshamsted, where later arose the abbey 
of Peterborough. But Guthlac seemed to have aimed 
in getting where there would be little possibility of 
improvement unless God wrought some extraordinary 
wonder. He did not seek to found a community such 
as that which afterward had its home on the islet con- 
secrated by his austerities. The labor, therefore, of 
reducing the spot so that man could live there was 



268 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

necessarily great ; that it was done well was due both to 
the Providence who gave the will and the strength and 
to the man who used the gifts given. Before Guthlac 
passed away the number of those who resorted to his 
seclusion was great. Many of them remained and built 
huts and houses close by his, and thus little by little the 
earth was saved from the wilderness. 

Whatever interpretation we put upon the stories of 
his ghostly combats — whether they were inventions of 
his own over-excited brain or of the over-excited imag- 
ination of his biographer — it does not mar the undoubted 
beauty and truth of Guthlac's character. Severe as was 
his asceticism, it was mild compared with that in which 
some indulged — perhaps much to the admiration of 
their contemporaries, certainly to the disgust and horror 
of the people of later ages. Writing, indeed, long after 
his time, but recording the popular tradition concerning 
him, Matthew of Westminster says, " If I were to desire 
to give a full account of all the virtues of this holy man, 
it would be an undertaking resembling that of beginning 
to count the sands of the sea." And, lest the testimony 
of one writing in the thirteenth century be thought too 
late to have much value, hear the opinion of a biog- 
rapher of the eighth century, the monk Felix of Yar- 
row : " The blessed man Guthlac was a chosen man in 
divine deeds and a treasure of all wisdom, and he was 
steadfast in his duties, as also he was earnestly intent 
on Christ's service ; so that never was aught else in his 
mouth but Christ's praise, nor in his heart but virtue, 
nor in his mind but peace and love and pity ; nor did 
any man ever see him angry or slothful to Christ's ser- 
vice, but one might ever perceive in his countenance 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 269 

love and peace, and evermore sweetness was in his 
temper and wisdom in his breast; and there was so 
much cheerfulness in him that he always appeared alike 
to acquaintances and to strangers." Notwithstanding 
Brother Felix's conventional hagiological style, there 
must have been some merit in the man to occasion 
such unqualified praise. 

But a life under such severe physical conditions could 
not last long. Fourteen years of exposure to the chills 
and the damps of the fen-wilds put a period to the days 
of the enthusiastic Guthlac. In the deserts of Egypt 
men lived to great ages, but no constitution could resist 
the trying conditions of the Mercian marshes. On the 
Wednesday of Easter week, April 11, 714, at the age of 
forty-one, the son of Penwald and Tette quietly and 
easily passed away, and Eadburga, daughter of King 
Aldwulf and abbess of Repton, sent him a leaden sar- 
cophagus and a shroud. A few years later was fulfilled 
his prophecy concerning Ethelbald, the man who knew 
how to wait : the son of Alweo sat upon the throne of 
Odin and of Orfa. 

It now remained for the new and powerful king to do 
after his promise, and to build a house of prayer in that 
lonely place. A dismal region indeed ! " There are im- 
mense marshes, now a black pool of water, now foul-run- 
ning streams, and also many islands and reeds and hillocks 
and thickets." So our good brother Felix said a thou- 
sand years since, and, in the reign of James I., Camden 
wrote, " This Crowland lies in the fenns, so enclos-'d and 
encompass'd with deep bogs and pools that there is no 
access to it but on the north and east side, and these by 
narrow causeys." It has long since been drained, and 



270 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Croyland is no longer an island in a marsh, but a quaint 
old-fashioned town in the midst of a wide and fertile 
plain. 

Ethelbald, though a prince who Caesar-like made 
himself master of all England south of the Humber, 
and Charles-like made himself a scandal to his age, set 
honestly to work. He had received several admonitions 
of his duty. While still an exile and grieving over the 
death of Guthlac, the holy man appeared and both 
rejoiced and encouraged him. Then Guthlac wrought 
signs and wonders. At his grave miracles were done, 
and a renown greater than ever went from hence through- 
out the land. It was impossible for Ethelbald to mis- 
take the signs of the times. He sent to the distant 
Evesham for Kenulph, a monk known for his religious 
life and executive ability, and to him he committed the 
rule and care of the new house. Then boats full of 
earth were brought from a distance of nine miles to 
make a foundation, piles of oak and beech in countless 
numbers were driven into the marsh, and in two or three 
years' time a stone structure was erected, and the breth- 
ren of St. Guthlac took possession of their new home 
in the name and under the protection of St. Mary and 
St. Bartholomew. Needless to say, the monks made 
good use of their possessions. They speedily converted 
the pools around their dwelling into fruitful meadow- 
land, raised their house to a position of influence and 
dignity, and encouraged pilgrimages to the tomb within 
which lay the precious relics of their founder. 

Brother Kenulph came from a remarkable place. On 
a wild and lonely holm covered with thorns and bushes 
and washed by the waters of that Avon which has since 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 2J\ 

been associated with the Warwickshire bard was a small 
ancient church. The bishop of Worcester at the time 
that St. Guthlac was struggling with the spirits and fogs 
of Croyland was Egwine, a man whose earnestness and 
eloquence in proclaiming the gospel of Christ did not 
hinder him from coveting the calm life of the monastery. 
He was seeking for a place where he might found a house 
of rest, when one day his herdsman, Eoves, told of a vis- 
ion he had seen at the old church on the holm. Accord- 
ing to his story, the Blessed Virgin had appeared to him 
brighter than the sun, holding a book and singing heav- 
enly songs with two other virgins. Next morning the 
bishop, attended by three companions, went barefoot to 
the place and saw the same vision ; whereupon he deter- 
mined to build a minster in her honor. The selection 
displayed remarkable taste : both for fertility and for 
scenery the region was all that could be desired. If 
only poor Guthlac had had visions of virgins instead 
of having visions of demons, he too might have fared 
better. In the very year — 714 — in which the life of 
Guthlac flowed away like the streams which by his hut 
amidst the reeds tended seaward, Egwine went into his 
completed home in the smiling valley watered by the 
silvery Avon. The holm of Eoves, or Eoves-holm, 
later Evesham, was destined to have one of the greatest 
of the religious houses of Mid-England, and it was not an 
ill-stroke of policy that led Ethelbald — or, to be cautious 
on that point, the chronicler — to associate Croyland and 
Evesham together. Brother Kenulph evidently did his 
part well. He gathered around him brethren, among 
whom were Cissa, Bettelm and Egbert, disciples of 
Guthlac, and our old friend Tatwin the fisherman, who 



272 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

had guided the saint to the haunted island. Good sis- 
ter Pega brought to the abbot relics of her renowned 
brother — the Psalter out of which he used to sing his 
praises, and the scourge of St. Bartholomew with which 
he administered discipline to his sinful body. If we 
could believe the chronicler — and on this point his tes- 
timony is as near false as it could very well be — we 
should give great honor to Ethelbald, king of the Mer- 
cians, because of his own gratuitous will and consent he 
did both lavishly and unmistakably endow the holy sanc- 
tuary of St. Guthlac with wide lands and great wealth. 

The rule which the brethren of Croyland adopted 
was that of St. Benedict. This great reformer of mon- 
achism was born at Nursia in 480, and died in 543. 
He never received ordination, but from his boyhood he 
adopted the retired life. When fourteen years old, he 
withdrew to a cave near Subiaco, and remained there 
for three years, unknown to all except an ancient monk 
who supplied him with bread and water by letting them 
down to him in an old bell tied to the end of a rope. 
Sensualism the youthful anchoret sought to overcome 
by rolling naked in the thorn-bushes. At the age of 
thirty he became abbot of a community at Vicovaro, but 
his rule was such that the brethren attempted to poison 
him. He left them and began to gather those who 
desired to live the higher life into groups of ten, ap- 
pointing over each group a dean and himself retain- 
ing the supremacy. In 528 he left Subiaco and took 
possession of an ancient temple of Apollo on Monte 
Casino, where he founded the house from which the 
many thousands of Benedictine monasteries took their 
origin. Here he perfected his famous " rule " and gave 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 273 

to monachism a life and a work far higher than had 
yet belonged to the system. 

The prominent feature of the " rule " was the prac- 
tical and wise manner in which it provided for rigid 
order. It made provision that every member of the 
community should be profitably employed. Six hours 
in the day were given to manual labor ; gifts and talents 
were recognized and officers were designated — some to 
rule, some to attend to household duties and some to 
see that each man properly accomplished his labor. 
The abbot's authority was subject only, and in a lim- 
ited degree, to the brethren assembled in chapter. He 
appointed the prior, the almoner, the sacristan, the cham- 
berlain, the cellarer, the hospitaller, the master of the in- 
firmary and the head-chaunter, who in turn directed the 
services of the brethren in their respective departments. 
Everything was done to make the establishment com- 
plete within itself; by its running stream was the mill, 
and near at hand were the workshops, bakehouse, brew- 
house and garden. Schools for the instruction of the 
young were also established, and while some of the 
brethren ploughed the fields and ground the corn, oth- 
ers went abroad to transact the business of the abbey 
and to preach the gospel. There was thus little op- 
portunity for that idleness and melancholia which had 
too often marred the exercise of the older monachism. 
Times were appointed for divine services, and great art 
and much beauty were displayed in the building of the 
church, the chapter-house and the refectory. The breth- 
ren wore black serge gowns ; hence they were sometimes 
called " the black monks." Throughout the history of 
this the richest and most extensive of orders a singular 

18 



274 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

wisdom guided its members to select the most lovely- 
sites for their houses. They delighted in raising their 
walls in picturesque woods and by the side of winding 
rivers or rushing streams. The finest abbeys of the Ben- 
edictines in all England, however, were in the fenland. 
There was this one under the care of St. Guthlac, where 
the people said every wain that came thither was shod 
with silver, no wheeled carriage being possible. Among 
them all there was none more glorious than 

" Crowland, as courteous as courteous may be." 

In the work known as the History of the Abbey of 
Cropland, Abbot Ingulph is made to give most interest- 
ing pictures of the mode of life and the order observed 
within the sacred precincts. The care taken of the old 
monks displayed marvellous tenderness and Christian 
love. When they who had borne the heat and burden 
of the day were past the ability for active labor, they 
had a good chamber furnished them in the infirmary, 
and had a servant specially appointed to wait upon them. 
The prior was to send to each old man every day a 
young monk to be his companion and to breakfast and 
dine with him. He was to follow his own will and 
pleasure — to sit at home or to walk out, to visit the 
cloisters, the refectory, the dormitory, or any other part 
of the monastery, in his monk's dress or without it, just 
as he pleased. Nothing unpleasant about the affairs of 
the monastery was to be mentioned in his presence. 
Every one was charged to avoid giving him offence, 
and everything was to be done for his comfort of mind 
and body that he might in the utmost peace and quiet- 
ness wait for his latter end. 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 275 

The mention of Abbot Ingulph suggests the beginning 
of difficulty. In the early part of the fifteenth century 
the monks of Croyland were called upon to defend 
some of their possessions claimed by the people of 
Spalding. The latter, moved by evil spirits, presumed 
to fish in waters and to cut down sedge and bulrushes 
in marshes belonging to St. Guthlac. It was not the 
first time that Satan had busied himself to the injury 
and detriment of the brethren, but now the quarrel so 
increased and the tempest waxed so mightily that an 
appeal had to be made to the king. The people of 
Hoyland, too, "just like so many ravening dogs," took 
possession of an island within the metes and boundaries 
of the abbey of Croyland ; and all this notwithstanding 
the fact that the abbot, " in presence of the whole con- 
vent, upon a solemn festival of note, did publicly and 
solemnly fulminate sentence of excommunication at the 
doors of the church against all persons whatsoever who 
should infringe the liberties of the church of St. Guth- 
lac, or should unjustly plunder its property or presume 
rashly to invade its possessions." Then, in the year of 
grace 141 5, the prior, Richard Upton, having "manfully 
girded up his loins as though about to fight against 
beasts," went up to London to plead for the rights of 
his house. Here he spent two years before he could 
bring the dispute to a satisfactory issue, and during 
those two years, besides waiting upon the state author- 
ities — tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of 
Askelon — it is highly probable he and his colleagues 
'prepared those weapons which in the end discomfited 
the adversary and secured the patrimony of St. Guth- 
lac. This work was none other than the composition 



2?6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

of a chronicle of the abbey from its earliest days, most 
interestingly written, full of picturesque stories and 
charming incidents, but, alas ! nothing better than " a 
novel founded on fact." Some truth it certainly has, 
as all historical romances have, but with the truth it 
contains a series of annals and charters which though 
long accepted as genuine are now known to be false. 
These charters are the deeds of kings and prelates — 
lavish in their liberality and emphatic in their language 
— making, confirming or acknowledging the grants to 
Croyland. One of the documents contains the follow- 
ing healthful and vigorous preamble and conclusion : 
" Inasmuch as the Egyptians naturally abominate all 
feeders of sheep, and the sons of darkness with unre- 
lenting fury persecute the sons of light (for at all times 
Midian is devising how to injure the people of the 
Lord)," etc., therefore whosoever shall presume to 
strip the house of Croyland of its possessions or to 
disturb the peace of the brethren thereof, " we " — that 
is to say, the gentlemen who sign the deed — " do from 
that time forward excommunicate the same, do remove 
their names from the book of life, and, separating them 
from the companionship of the saints and driving them 
afar from the threshold of heaven, do, unless they shall, 
by making due satisfaction, speedily correct their errors, 
immediately consign them for their demerits to be con- 
demned with the traitor Judas to the flames of hell." Still, 
this plain statement of consequences did not secure peace 
to the fraternity ; nor did many another made by kings 
who reigned " under the King who ruleth above the stars." 
The book, full of forgeries as it is, has a value as 
indicating the mind and the temper of the men of the 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 2JJ 

fifteenth century. Whether their predecessors seven hun- 
dred years earlier would have sanctioned such measures 
wherewith to secure that property which had been saved 
from the wilderness is another thing: probably they 
would not ; but it is interesting to se,e how in an age 
when people invented miracles and shaped relics by the 
heap they did not hesitate to forge a charter or a record. 
In this case the work was but clumsily performed, yet it 
won the suit for the monks. It cost the abbey the large 
outlay of five hundred pounds to complete the imposition; 
and when it was done, the prior's confidential lawyer was 
one night " extremely sad and disquieted in spirit." He 
could not sleep "by reason of revolving many things in 
his mind." The prior also was unwell, but, lest it might 
be supposed that his disturbance arose from the work- 
ings of conscience or from excitement at the anticipated 
success of the fraud, we are expressly told that he was 
sick : "his stomach, as though through indignation, refused 
to retain anything that was offered to it." " Indignation " 
is not a misprint for " indigestion," which the modern 
reader might suppose would naturally arise from the 
prior's close application to this " perplexed labyrinth of 
agonizing toil :" the good man was righteously pro- 
voked at the people who would infringe upon the liber- 
ties and possessions of the church of St. Guthlac. That 
night, however, the serjeant-at-law, Master William 
Ludyngton, was greatly troubled, and for long his sleep 
went from him. Then came a gentle slumber — per- 
chance the chronicler would have us think the slumber 
as of a child, pure and simple — and as he slept, behold ! 
beside him stood the venerable form of the hermit of 
Croyland. The saint bade him be of good comfort, to 



2jb READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

relax his limbs in repose, and to be sure that in the 
morning prosperity would smile upon him according 
to his will and pleasure. Triumph, indeed, speedily 
followed. The law gave Croyland its alleged rights. 
No one knew anything against the integrity of the 
brethren : they were as innocent as the gentle offspring 
of the sheep on whose skins they had written their 
ancient charters ; and both the prior and his friends 
returned abundant thanksgivings to God for the divine 
consolation which had been granted to them from heav- 
en. Soon after, the abbot — who had ruled over the 
house of Guthlac for five and twenty years, and, being 
blind and well stricken in years, was desirous to leave 
this present and wicked world and valley of tears for a 
region of everlasting light and peace — fell ill, on the fes- 
tival of the Nativity, and " happily departed " upon the 
feast of St. Thomas the Martyr. He was buried before 
the great altar of the church, and with the unanimous 
consent of the brethren Prior Richard Upton reigned 
in his stead. 

The interesting story which gives us an ideal picture 
of what Croyland might have been, and shows us the 
opinions and views of men in an age when the glory 
and the spirit of monachism were about to pass away, 
was alleged to have been the compilation of Ingulphus, 
the first abbot of Croyland after the Norman Conquest. 
He was an Englishman who in the days of Edward the 
Confessor had been secretary to William, duke of Nor- 
mandy. Later he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 
and on his return to Europe became a monk in the 
house of St. Wandrille at Fontenelle. Here, under the 
accomplished abbot Gerbert, a German by birth and a 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 2J$ 

great philosopher, he received his learning and rose to 
the rank of prior. In 1085 the Conqueror appointed 
him to the abbatial stall of Croyland, then vacant by 
the deposition of Ulfcytel. Here he ruled in peace and 
prosperity for twenty-four years, securing for his abbey 
many valuable privileges and immunities and enlarging 
and repairing its buildings. Though of a sickly consti- 
tution, he was vigorous in mind and firm in spirit. His 
reign was one of the most celebrated in the annals of 
Croyland, and his exalted reputation, both as a scholar 
and as an ecclesiastic, made it worth while to claim him 
as the author of the history. The book was indeed 
made to have some appearance of truth, and, faulty as 
it is, uncertain and untrue as much of it is, we have in 
it a charming picture of ancient times. But there is 
none of Ingulph's work in it, only an understratum of 
an authentic account of the abbey written by his con- 
temporary Orderic. Doubtless the life of Guthlac by 
Felix, and other chronicles, which have now perished, 
were used ; but Orderic's account is alone all that can 
be certainly traced. Nor are the " continuations " of 
either greater or less value. 

Though secluded in the wilderness far away from the 
busy haunts of men, Croyland passed through many 
vicissitudes in the course of its life of seven hundred 
years. Miracles did not give it an immunity from 
oppression and wrong, notwithstanding it is said of the 
multitudes of the sick who flocked daily to the tomb of 
St. Guthlac, " The Lord so plentifully opened unto them 
all the fountains of his healthful mercies that sometimes 
in one day more than a hundred persons so paralyzed 
were healed." Ever and anon the heathen raged, the 



28o READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

people imagined a vain thing, and the patrimony of St. 
Guthlac suffered evil. 

In the autumn of the year 870 the community came 
very near utter extinction. At that time the pagan 
Danes were overrunning the land ; in the neighborhood 
of Croyland they had wrought such ruin that the people 
made a desperate effort to withstand them. An army 
was gathered together, including two hundred " very 
stout warriors " from Croyland under the command of 
Brother Toley, once most renowned throughout all 
Mercia for his military skill, but who had lately, 
"through the desire of a heavenly country, given up 
secular for spiritual warfare at Croyland." The struggle 
went on with varying success, but ended in the death of 
Brother Toley and many of his brave band. The abbot 
had just time to send into the adjoining fens some of 
the brethren with the " most holy body of St. Guthlac " 
and a few other relics, when the fierce barbarians broke 
into the sacred precincts. Not only did the Danes 
plunder the shrines of the saints and heap together the 
consecrated treasures in a huge fire, but they also killed 
the venerable abbot and those of his brethren who had 
not taken refuge in flight. One human being only escaped 
— little Brother Turgar, a child beautiful in face and 
person, and ten years old. When the boy saw Lethwyn, 
the aged subprior, struck down, he earnestly begged 
that he too might be put to death ; but one of the 
Danish earls, Sidroc the Younger, had pity on him, and, 
throwing over him a long Danish tunic, spared and pro- 
tected his life. The rude chief seems to have learned to 
love the helpless lad. He watched over him during the 
ensuing scenes of terrible carnage, and won the grati- 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 28 1 

tude, though not the affection, of his protege. Within 
a week after leaving Croyland, an opportunity offering, 
Brother Turgar, as the chronicler affectionately calls 
him, ran away from his Danish friends into a wood, and, 
walking all night, at daybreak again found himself 
among the ruins of Croyland. The brethren who had 
fled had now returned, and were busy extinguishing the 
flames which still had the mastery of some parts of the 
building. To the trembling monks Turgar told of the 
murder of the abbot and of those who had stayed with 
him. They searched for the remains of their brethren, 
and after a long time, with the exception of the body 
of Brother Wulric, the taper-bearer, they found them 
and gave them honorable burial. 

Many were the years of trial before the community 
was able to re-establish itself and rebuild the walls of 
its house. Only four years later the Mercian king 
Ceolwulph, " an Englishman by birth, but a barbarian 
in impiety," having sworn fealty to the Danes, compelled 
Croyland to contribute toward the annual danegeld a 
tax of one thousand pounds, and thus nearly reduced 
the monastery to a state of destitution. The victories 
of King Alfred helped the fraternity somewhat, but 
prosperity came to them in the year 946 at the hands 
of Turketul, a wealthy and nobly-born statesman, chan- 
cellor of King Edred. On his way to York this great 
man had occasion to stay at the abbey of Croyland ; the 
brethren treated him with the best of their ability, for a 
"lord of sixty manors " did not often visit them. They 
told him, also, of their afflictions, and not only excited 
his commiseration, but also secured his private assist- 
ance. When he came back to the south country, being 



282 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

" guided by the Holy Spirit," as the chronicler devoutly 
says, he again visited Croyland. He was received with 
extreme gladness, and highly commended and consoled 
the brethren, " reminding them that the hand of the 
Lord was always powerful and ready to aid his people." 
Also he conferred on the abbey the surname of " Cur- 
teys " and gave to the " old men " the more substantial 
gift of twenty pounds of silver. Then Turketul pur- 
sued his journey, but soon he bade the king farewell, 
paid his debts, returned to Croyland, and on St. Barthol- 
omew's day, 948, became a monk. Bringing with him 
his great wealth and his powerful influence, he was at 
once made abbot; and the king, anxious to do some 
good, completed the restoration of the monastery in a 
style most magnificent. Many learned men with Tur- 
ketul assumed the monastic garb. 

In the year 974, Brother Turgar, now venerable with 
the weight of one hundred and fifteen years, having 
been all his life faithful to his beloved St. Guthlac, 
passed away, and the following summer Abbot Turketul 
caught a fever from the intense heat of the Dog-star, 
and likewise died. The end of this benefactor was full 
of grace. Stoutly for three days did he struggle against 
the fever as " a thing not in accordance with his usual 
robust health," but, the end being inevitable, he gathered 
around him the whole convent, consisting of forty-seven 
monks and four lay-brethren, and took of them an affec- 
tionate farewell. The remembrance of his devoutness 
did not fade from the memories of many of them all 
the days of their lives. At the hour of compline, the 
day being the translation of St. Benedict, he " quit the 
labors of the abbacy for the bosom of his father Abra- 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 283 

ham." The good man was only sixty-seven years old, 
and his death was all the more lamented because since 
St. Guthlac's time the brethren had grown better able to 
withstand the fogs and the chills of the marsh. In 973, 
Brother Swarting died at the ripe age of one hundred 
and forty-two. 

The community had now a large and well-furnished 
church and abbey, and for a time increased in wealth 
and appeared to flourish. The chronicler records with 
satisfaction the good times of Edward the Confessor, 
and in his admiration for that saintly prince tells us that 
when, in 105 1, the king saw the devil dancing upon a 
heap of tribute-money which had been wrongfully ex- 
acted from the people, he would not touch the unhal- 
lowed pile, but forthwith restored it, and for ever remit- 
ted the tax. But under William the virulence of the 
enemies of St. Guthlac increased; "just as on the body 
of Behemoth ' scale is joined to scale,' so did they stop 
up every breath of truth." How the monastery escaped 
destruction can be accounted for only by the superior 
merit of St. Guthlac. 

In 1076 the brethren had a signal proof of the divine 
favor. A former bailiff claimed as his own certain lands 
of the abbey, and the case had to be tried before the 
king's officers at Stamford. Let Ingulph tell the story 
himself: "On that day, being about to appear before 
the king's justices on the business of the monastery, I 
commended myself to the prayers of my brethren, and, 
putting my trust in the Lord, rode to Stamford ; he too, 
confiding in the greatness of his riches and placing all 
his hopes in his treasures of money, was riding on, 
stiff-necked as he was, against God, when, lo and be- 



284 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

hold ! his horse, striking against a stumbling-block of a 
stone that lay in the middle of the road, threw his rider 
and broke his neck, and so sent to hell the soul of him 
who was thus going in his pride to oppose the Lord." 
The excited feelings of the narrator must be allowed to 
excuse his vehement language, but the end was not yet : 
" On the following day, when he was being carried by 
his neighbors and relatives on a bier toward the convent 
of Burgh to be buried — a place which he had often be- 
fore named as that of his sepulture — those who carried 
it had to pass over ten acres of the meadow-land belong- 
ing to our monastery to which he in his lifetime had laid 
claim, when, behold ! a most dense cloud covered the 
sun in his course, and brought on, as it were, the shades 
of night, while the heavens poured forth such a deluge 
of rain that from the flowing of the waters the days of 
Noah were thought to have come over again ; in addi- 
tion to which, the bier suddenly broke down, and the 
body of the deceased, falling to the ground, was for a 
long time rolled about in the filthy mud. On seeing 
this those who carried him acknowledged the hand of 
the Lord and openly confessed their injustice, while his 
relations and neighbors came running to meet us — who 
at the same moment had arrived from Stamford — and, 
throwing themselves at our feet, entreated that pardon 
might be granted them for so outrageous an injury 
attended by the manifest vengeance of God. Returning 
thanks unto God and Saint Guthlac for their assistance, 
we forgave them the injury they had done us, and re- 
ceived from them our meadow-land — all right to which 
they disclaimed — together with all other things in full 
to which we laid claim ; and we have up to this present 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 285 

time remained in peaceable possession of the same. 
Blessed be God in all things, who hath returned to the 
unrighteous according to the works of his hands, and 
who hath made foolish and rendered unstable the coun- 
sels of his heart !" 

The ability of the chronicler of Croyland to tell a 
story in an interesting and a graphic manner can no 
more be questioned than can the self-complacency 
which appears in every line. Nothing that is done for 
the abbey is wrong. When the Domesday survey was 
taken, the persons appointed to describe the possessions 
and revenues of Croyland " showed a kind and benevo- 
lent feeling toward our monastery, and did not value the 
monastery at its true revenue, nor yet at its exact extent, 
and thus, in their compassion, took due precautions 
against the future exactions of the kings, as well as 
other burdens, and with the most attentive benevolence 
made provision for our welfare." After this charitable 
and virtuous proceeding to defraud the royal revenues, 
we are not surprised to hear that, in 1085, St. Guthlac 
wrought a miracle after the fashion of Elijah at Zare- 
phath. During a terrible famine the worthy anchoret — 
now in Paradise — sent the brethren four sacks of corn 
which wasted not until the days of plenty came again. 
Six years later, owing to the carelessness of the plumber 
who was repairing the roof of the church, the building 
caught fire, and a very large part of the abbey was de- 
stroyed. This, Ingulph concluded, happened because 
diligent attention had not been given to the dying charge 
of the ancient Turketul to take care of the fires. The 
friends in the neighborhood came to the rescue and 
helped the monks to restore their home. " Nor should, 



286 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

among so many of our benefactors, the holy memory 
of Juliana, a poor old woman of Weston, be consigned 
to oblivion, who of her want did give unto us all her 
living — namely, a great quantity of- spun thread, for the 
purpose of sewing the vestments of the brethren of our 
monastery." 

The brotherhood, however, had another friend besides 
St. Guthlac. In the June of 1075 was put to death at 
Winchester the earl and patriot Waltheof — one " who 
had shown himself most kindly disposed toward all the 
religious, and an especial and most excellent friend to 
the monastery of Croyland." Charged with a political 
offence of which he appears to have been guiltless, the 
treachery of his wife and the covetousness of his ene- 
mies secured his execution. Fifteen days later the 
monks of St. Guthlac, full of sorrow at the loss of so 
noble a benefactor, removed his body from the grave. 
The remains were fresh, and appeared as though newly 
sprinkled with fresh blood. They were taken to Croy- 
land and buried in the chapter-house. The great fire 
just mentioned, in laying waste the buildings, exposed 
the tomb " to the showers and all kinds of tempests." 
Ingulph therefore determined upon the translation of 
the " holy martyr " into the church ; and when the 
restorations were completed, the deed was done. But 
when the sepulchre was open, says the chronicler, " be- 
hold ! we found the body as whole and as uncorrupted 
as on the day on which it was buried." The miracle 
was not uncommon : St. Guthlac had also resisted the 
process of decay. Nor, in view of the story of St. 
Winifred, is the rest of the record singular : " We also 
found the head united to the body, while a fine crimson 



ST. GUTHLAC AND CROYLAND. 287 

line around the neck was the only sign remaining of his 
decollation." The delight of the brethren can be imag- 
ined. A kiss, and odors exceeding those of distant 
Syria proceeded from the body; a moment's wonder, 
and the brethren began a song of praise. When Wal- 
theof was laid beside Guthlac, the monastery began to 
realize the power of the martyr. At his tomb thou- 
sands plighted their vows and paid their offerings. 

Many bits of quaint story lie in these chronicles. At 
Croyland began in England the custom of washing the 
poor men's feet on Maunday Thursday : the duties of 
the brethren and the servitors were so wisely arranged 
as to serve for an example to other communities ; and 
the sanctity of the convent is displayed in such as 
Brother Wulfsy, who in passing from Croyland to 
Evesham " during the whole journey," says Peter of 
Blois, " had his eyes covered with a bandage, so that 
he might not again look upon the vanities of the world 
which he had forsaken, and incur any taint therefrom in 
his heart and afterward have to repent thereof." It is 
satisfactory to know that Brother Wulfsy, having filled 
the measure of his days and in his last moments testi- 
fied with remarkable precision to the possessions of 
Croyland, died in peace. But here the gleaning must 
stop. 

The abbey held its own till the days when a mightier 
than St. Guthlac arose. Ivo Taillebois — that " succes- 
sor of the old Adam," that " frail potsherd," that 
" avowed enemy of the servants of God " — who in the 
year 1114 "descended to hell in a moment of time," 
may have wrought much wrong to Croyland, but he 
was as nothing beside the eighth Harry of England. 



288 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Then the thirty-ninth abbot had no successor, and the 
sanctuary of the great Mercian saint was eternally dese- 
crated. Eight hundred years is a long life for any insti- 
tution ; and while, indeed, wrong and error seem to have 
an immortality of their own, yet Croyland was not with- 
out its design of good or its career of usefulness. St. 
Guthlac did not in the evil days of the sixteenth cen- 
tury come to the rescue — perhaps because his patrimony 
had served its purpose, and because it was fitting that 
the community should do as he had long since done, 
enter into its rest. But both for his sake and for the 
sake of Waltheof, Croyland will be remembered. 
Thanks to the charm of the Ingulph chronicle, the 
name and the story of the great house will abide. 
The splendor has gone and the glow of sunset has 
long since faded into night. Now the great tower 
guides the traveller across the fenland to the ruins of 
the former glory ; beneath the rank grass and the bram- 
ble-bushes lies the dust of the nameless brethren ; around 
the broken buildings fly large numbers of crows and 
daws — the descendants, perchance, of those which St. 
Guthlac fed more than a thousand years since; and 
ever and anon as in the days of old the fog creeps up 
from the sea and the moisture drops from the alder- 
leaves. Yet out of the north aisle of the abbey-church 
has been shaped for the villagers a place of worship, 
and near the spot where the famous hermit wrestled 
with uncanny powers are still heard the matin-prayer 
and the chant of the evensong. 



CHAPTER XI. 

©fje ffiilorg of (Santerimrg- 

None of the thirteen centuries of the primatial see 
of England is more glorious than that in which its 
throne was occupied by Lanfranc, Anselm and Becket, 
These men, respectively statesman, saint and martyr, 
each great in himself, both guided the Church through 
the dangers of the first hundred years following the Con- 
quest and brought imperishable renown to themselves 
and to the foundation of St. Augustine and Theodore. 
Other archbishops have been eminent for the same 
virtues. Most worthy in statecraft were Dunstan and 
Langton ; in saintliness, Edmund Rich and Thomas 
Bradwardine; and in death, Simon Sudbury and Wil- 
liam Laud ; but of them none shines with lustre equal 
to that which belongs to the three prelates who reigned 
from the day when England became Norman to the 
day when she became England again. 

By the beginning of the eleventh century both the 
realm and the Church of the English needed the in- 
coming of an element which would give them stability 
and bring them into closer contact with the civilized 
and the religious world. For two hundred years the 
kingdom had been one, but the native princes were not 
strong enough to save the crown from Danish invaders, 
nor when the latter had secured it were they able for 

19 289 



29O READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

long to retain its possession. The era between Egbert 
and the Confessor, though for the nonce lighted up by 
the virtues of an Alfred and the prowess of a Knut, 
was therefore full of trouble and uncertainty. Within, 
the difficulties of consolidation were many and great; 
without, eager and ambitious peoples held themselves 
ready to seize upon the land. Isolation was a conse- 
quence of this strife. The nation kept itself aloof from 
the life of Europe. It fell behind its continental neigh- 
bors in the development of arts, social comforts, polit- 
ical economy and ecclesiastical order. When the son of 
Ethelred the Unready, the blue-eyed Edward, in 1042 
received the crown, England was indeed, compared with 
the lands beyond the Channel, another world. 

The Church to a considerable extent suffered from this 
separation. Its rulers were more patriots than ecclesias- 
tics, more desirous of maintaining the independency of 
their jurisdictions than of sharing in the vitality and the 
splendor which belonged to the papal confederation. 
Appeals had already been made to Rome, some of the 
bishops had been consecrated there, gifts were presented 
to the pope by English pilgrims, but the authority of 
the apostolic see, except when it chanced to agree with 
the island-Church, was neither recognized nor obeyed. 
The pontiffs never succeeded in making the provinces 
of Canterbury and York part and parcel of their realm 
as they did Spain, France and Germany. They assumed 
prerogatives ; they overshadowed bishops and abbots of 
a Church so poor and remote; but England cherished 
her own freedom and dreaded the death of absorption. 
And this very feeling hindered her growth. The Church 
was neither large enough nor strong enough to keep 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 29 1 

pace with the age. It abounded in saints, but it dwin- 
dled in scholarship. The tides and the currents which 
moved the outside world scarcely touched the Saxons 
beside the Thames or the Danes along the Humber. 
They were as the inhabitants of a village distant from 
and having little intercourse with the city, living within 
themselves, going over and over the ground of their 
own narrow limitations and thinking their knowledge 
all-sufficient. They were superstitious without reason 
and pious without charity. They thought their clergy 
the peers of any, and their rites, edifices, theology and 
laws all that could be desired. Edward, however, had 
lived in Normandy, and he saw that the Church of his 
land had stagnated and was in desperate need of refor- 
mation. Either it must come nearer the great body of 
Christendom or it must perish. Therefore he brought 
in bishops and scholars from abroad, and prepared the 
way for the more effectual work of William of Nor- 
mandy. 

In this decline, however, past glory must not be for- 
gotten. The Church had lived for five hundred years ; 
then, in the new life brought in by Lanfranc, Anselm 
and Becket, it went on for a second period of like length, 
when another revolution saved it from death and gave it 
its modern character. In each of these phases of its 
existence it had its splendor and its shame, its growth 
and its decay, its morning, noontide and evening. In 
the early period, besides such men as in preceding chap- 
ters have been named, it had in Caedmon and Aldhelm 
its poets, its scholars in Alcuin, Swithin, Wilfrid and 
^Elfric, its historians in Asser and Alfred, its missionary 
in Boniface, and its prince-bishop in Dunstan. 



292 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTCR V. 

More celebrated than these, however, is the Venerable 
Bede, who by his scholarship, piety and books made his 
age remarkable, and therefore deserves more than pass- 
ing notice. He was a Northumbrian, born in 673 at 
Wearmouth, and from the age of seven brought up by 
the learned Benedict Biscop either at that monastery or 
at Yarrow. The two houses were in the strictest union, 
and under the enlightened rule of their abbots Bede ac- 
quired a knowledge of the literature and the thought of 
his day, an acquaintance with sacred and classic authors, 
a broad and liberal view of men and things and a love 
for history. His ordination and his first book appear to 
synchronize with the year 702, and the next thirty years 
of his life were spent in writing church history, com- 
mentaries and Lives of saints. A love for truth, a clear 
perception, a sound policy and a pure soul made his 
character beautiful and his works valuable. Upon him 
we chiefly depend for our knowledge of the British and 
the early English churches. With rare industry and 
lively acumen he perspicaciously arranged his materials, 
gathered from all possible sources. Though he rarely 
left his monastery, his name was known everywhere. 
Gentle and humble, he won the affection of his con- 
temporaries and the admiration of his scholars. Nor 
was his death less lovely than had been his life. In his 
last illness above all things he most dreaded to be absent 
from the services. ° The angels are there," said he ; 
" what if they find me not among the brethren ? Will 
they not say, ' Where is Bede ?' " To the day of his dy- 
ing he kept up his work and his devotion. In that day, 
the Ascension vigil or feast of 735, too weak to join in the 
perambulations, and therefore left alone with his amanu- 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 293 

ensis, Cuthbert, he continued his translation of St. John. 
" Dearest master," the youth said, " there is one chapter 
wanting, and it is hard for thee to question thyself." — 
" No, it is easy," Bede replied ; " take thy pen, and write 
quickly." The eventide came on. Again the lad ob- 
served, " There is yet one more sentence, dear master, 
to write out." The dying man answered, " Write quick- 
ly." After a little while Cuthbert laid down his pen and 
said, " It is finished." — " Thou hast spoken truly," said 
Bede : " it is finished. Take now my head between thy 
hands and lift me. Fain would I sit with my face to- 
ward the place where I was ever wont to pray." So, 
while the dusky night hung over sea and mountain, he 
sat and waited for the Death-angel. A sunbeam kisses 
the swollen rose, and out of its mossy sheath the flower 
bursts into beauty and fragrance ; a touch of God's mes- 
senger, and to the bud given in baptism, preserved by 
grace and nurtured by piety would come the blossom- 
ing — the soul of the old man would pass into the light 
and the youth of the eternal land. The touch was 
given; Bede uttered his last earthly Gloria Patri y and 
then " he went to the kingdom in heaven." Where he 
died his remains were buried ; later they were taken to 
Durham and placed in the same coffin with the bones of 
St. Cuthbert. 

The English Church, therefore, early had its glory, 
and though, as with all things in this world, it was 
destined to pass away, a new day should dawn full of 
radiance when the sceptre of Cerdic should pass to 
Duke William and the see of Canterbury to his friend 
and supporter Lanfranc. 

One of the projects by which William sought to 



294 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

justify the invasion of England was the reformation of 
the Church there, to which project the pope gladly 
gave both his benediction and the character of a cru- 
sade. Lanfranc had long been the trusted counsellor 
of the ambitious duke. Born in 1005 of a well-known 
and honorable family at Pavia, in Lombardy, he had 
acquired in his native city an erudition unexcelled by 
any contemporary. Especially was he acquainted with 
the Greek language and with civil law. In 1039 he 
went to Normandy, and in Avranches opened a school 
which soon obtained much fame and many scholars. 
Three years later he became a monk at Bee — a house 
founded, and now ruled, by the noble Herlwin. His 
obedience was thorough. When directed by a superior 
to shorten the second syllable of docere, he did so ; for 
order was more important than right pronunciation. In 
1045 he became prior, and soon attracted the attention 
of Duke William. He even ventured to rebuke the 
duke for marrying Matilda, his cousin ; whereupon the 
duke promptly sentenced him to banishment and ordered 
part of the possessions of Bee to be burned. On the 
way out of the country, however, William met the 
great scholar ; a reconciliation was effected, and Lan- 
franc undertook to secure the pope's sanction of the 
marriage. He succeeded, but William had to make 
atonement for his sin by founding two monasteries. Of 
these the more famous was that of St. Stephen at Caen, 
over which in 1066 the wise monk of Bee was made 
first abbot. The next year Lanfranc refused the bishop- 
ric of Rouen — perhaps because both he and William 
had in mind the more important throne of Canterbury. 
Be that as it may, August 29, 1070, he was consecrated 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 2g$ 

archbishop of the English, and his old pupil Anselm 
of Lucca, now Alexander IL, conferred upon him two 
palls — the only instance in history of the double honor. 
Two of the most remarkable men of the time thus 
ruled in England — William, Dei gracia Rex Anglorum, 
and Lanfranc, Gentium transmarinarum summus Ponti- 
fex. Hildebrand the archdeacon, three years later 
Gregory VII., was their only peer in Europe. He was 
not only their peer, but lord also of all the kings and 
bishops from Brittany to Dalmatia and from Leon to 
the Baltic. In him the Church had its greatest reformer 
and disciplinarian, and the papacy its mightiest advocate. 
Grieved at the abuses of the times, the negligence of 
the clergy, the quarrellings of princes, the immorality, 
unhappiness and indifference of the people, his remedy 
was a strong central authority at Rome to which the 
nations should bow, and which every Christian should 
obey. His claims, startling as they seem to us, met 
with the approval of most reflective men. The world 
has ever sought a way from its troubles. One age 
thinks a king or a prophet the sure panacea, and anoth- 
er trusts to the majority-spirit of the people ; but the 
eleventh century pinned its faith to the highest clergy- 
man in Christendom. So did William and Lanfranc — 
when it pleased them. Hildebrand could keep the 
emperor Henry three days in the snow waiting his will 
and humiliate him before Europe, but William and 
Lanfranc were too like Hildebrand himself. They 
quietly laughed at him or ignored his commands : he 
never went farther than threatening. Hildebrand asked 
for fealty and tribute : William refused both, but offered 
to send money as a gift. Nor would Lanfranc at the 



296 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

pope's bidding appear at Rome: he was bent upon 
reforming the Church over which he ruled, but not 
upon subjecting it to the successors of St. Peter. For- 
eigner though he was, he became as patriotic as Wulf- 
stan and as insular as Stigand. When the decree of 
enforced clerical celibacy was enacted, he freely modified 
it, and allowed the parochial clergy to retain their wives. 
His acute, busy mind, trained by travel, diplomacy and 
learning, had a wide grasp of ecclesiastical and political 
questions, considerable subtlety and an undaunted dar- 
ing. He united the vigor of an accomplished ruler 
with the gentleness of the scholar and the wisdom of 
the theologian. Without violence or sacrificing the 
interests of either Church or State, he gradually effected 
the needed changes. The native bishops were removed 
and foreign prelates placed in their stead. Sees which 
had been established in villages or small towns were 
transferred to more important centres — e. g., Selsey to 
Chichester, Sherborne to Sarum, Elmham to Thetford, 
Dorchester to Lincoln, Wells to Bath, and Lichfield to 
Chester. William of Malmesbury joyfully declares, 
" No sinister means profited a bishop in those days, 
nor could an abbot procure advancement by purchase." 
Every bishop was required to acknowledge the suprem- 
acy of Canterbury; and when a candidate for York 
refused at the consecration to take the oath of obedience, 
Lanfranc stayed the rites and sent him away unordained. 
For the settlement of disputed questions concerning 
ritual, precedence, simony and marriage he held six 
councils. He also rebuilt the cathedral at Canterbury, 
sanctioned the Use of Sarum and devised the separation 
of the civil and ecclesiastical courts. 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 297 

In nothing, however, was Lanfranc more active than 
in establishing; and reforming monasteries. Before his 
day only ninety-four houses had been founded in Eng- 
land; within two hundred years of his death nearly 
eleven hundred were built. The rule of St. Benedict 
still prevailed, but fault was now found with its disci- 
pline. In 910, Odo of Clugny, in Burgundy, attempted 
a reformation of the order ; hence the Cluniac monks, 
who in the height of their power had about twenty 
houses in England, all subject to the abbot of the 
mother-house on the Continent. They were remark- 
able for the development of a high ritual and for an 
excessive aestheticism. About 1080, Bruno, a priest of 
Cologne, made an essay in the opposite direction. In a 
desert-spot near Grenoble, in Dauphine, he founded a 
house for brethren who desired the plainest and most 
austere life. From the place — Chartreux — they obtained 
the name of Carthusians, and, though they never became 
popular and had in England but nine houses, they still 
claim theirs to be the only order never reformed because 
of deviation from their original rule. They may be 
called the puritans of monachism. '■ I thought," said 
Bruno, " on the days of old and the years of eternity, 
and, lo ! I fled far off and abode in solitude." Rigid 
silence, utter seclusion and loneliness, and constant 
prayer distinguished his followers. St. Hugh of Ava- 
lon, afterward bishop of Lincoln and renowned for his 
energy, munificence and holiness, was the first prior of the 
first Carthusian convent in England — that of Witham, 
in Somersetshire. An order less severe than the Car- 
thusian and more rigid than the Cluniac was founded 
in 1098 by Robert of Molesme at Citeaux, in Burgundy. 



29& READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

At first unsuccessful, it was taken up by an Englishman, 
Stephen Harding, and finally established, about 1 136, 
by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, scholar, poet, mystic, op- 
ponent of Arnold of Brescia and Abelard and founder 
or restorer of seventy-two monasteries. Called some- 
times, from him, " Bernardines," from the color of their 
habit " White Monks " and from their first home " Cis- 
tercians," the brethren of this society made their way 
into England, and there created some of the most cele- 
brated establishments. They were great farmers, living 
in places nominally ten miles from any town, and teach- 
ing the mountain-valleys, the barren wilderness and the 
unclaimed moor to rejoice with fertility and with beauty. 
Among their abbeys were Tintern, Fountains, Rievaulx, 
Melrose and Furness. Each house was dedicated to 
St. Mary, and all were independent and of equal rank. 
Other communities, comparatively unimportant, also 
branched out of the Benedictine society, but none — 
not even the Cistercian — received the glory of that 
great order. It remained the wealthiest and the most 
extensive of " rules," the home of historians and 
scholars, the most healthful form of monachism and 
the guardian of many cathedrals and minsters. The 
Black Monks never lost their hold on the affections of 
the people, and never fell into abuses which made other 
orders a proverb and a reproach. 

Distinct from the monks and the secular clergy, 
though partaking somewhat of the nature of both, 
were the canons. Originally they were the assistants 
of the bishop, helping him in his immediate work, at- 
tending to the services of the cathedral and with him 
living in community. Afterward they were associated 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 299 

in the care of churches without the bishop, forming a 
staff of parochial clergy, and differing from them only 
in abiding under the one roof or within the same pre- 
cincts. They observed no laws such as distinguished 
monks, but even sought for greater laxity and individ- 
ual independence. Finally they branched into canons 
secular — approaching more nearly the clergy who ob- 
served no " rule of life " — and canons regular, building 
houses, keeping hours of service, living under authority 
and becoming semi-monastical. The canons regular again 
divided into two principal orders — the Austin, or Black, 
following the institutes of St. Augustine of Hippo, con- 
stituted in 1061 and in England eventually second only 
to the Benedictine monks in numbers and influence; 
and the Prsemonstratensian, or White, founded by Nor- 
bert of Magdeburg in 11 20 at Premontre, in Picardy. 
The former were always subject to episcopal visitation ; 
the latter, like the Cluniac monks, gave allegiance to 
their French chief house. Both had their houses the 
same as the monks, though they never attempted a 
discipline so severe or a seclusion so rigid. 

These differences observed, much confusion is avoid- 
ed. The monks, the canons, and afterward the friars, 
were distinct classes. Many of them received priests' 
orders, but none of them necessarily, and the greater 
part of the clergy had naught to do with them. They 
were divided not only from one another, having no 
interests in common, but, as we have seen, also within 
themselves. Perhaps the purpose of each may thus be 
expressed : The monk sought to work out his own sal- 
vation by isolation from the world ; the canon served 
the people and differed from a secular priest only in 



3<X> READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

living with other priests in community and under a light 
rule ; and the friar, as by and by will appear, aimed at 
the conversion of the masses. In England the Benedic- 
tines were most numerous south of the Thames and in 
the fenland; the Cistercians were largely in Wales, 
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire; and the Austin canons 
abounded along the eastern coasts. The other orders 
were too small to affect any district. 

When Lanfranc became archbishop, he found not only 
his cathedral in ruins, but also the monks in charge of 
it woefully distant from the rule which they professed. 
For long much rivalry had existed between them and 
the great abbey of Benedictines founded by St. Augus- 
tine without the walls. The two houses had disputed 
concerning the residence of the archbishop, and, though 
it was for a while agreed that the monks of Christchurch 
should have him while living and the monks of St. 
Augustine when dead, the arrangement was broken by 
Cuthbert, the eleventh archbishop. He prepared for 
his burial within the cathedral ; and when, at the tolling 
of the bell announcing his decease, the brethren of St. 
Augustine came for his body, they found that he had 
been dead three days and was already in his grave. 
The triumph of the Christchurch brethren did not 
soothe the rage of those of St. Augustine, to whom a 
dead archbishop was far more profitable than one liv- 
ing ; nor did the ill-feeling die for many an age. Both 
societies needed reformation, and Lanfranc began first 
with his own monks. His changes were gradual, but 
decided. The number of brethren was raised to one 
hundred and fifty, placed under the government of a 
prior, he himself being abbot. They no longer were to 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 301 

follow the customs of men of the world, to play dice, 
wear soft apparel and give banquets, but were to forsake 
the error of their ways and to live according to the rule 
of St. Benedict. To them fell the care of the new 
cathedral. Thence he proceeded with other communi- 
ties, redressing their wrongs, rebuking their shortcom- 
ings and strengthening their position. In Canterbury 
hospitals for the poor and the sick were also founded — 
among them, the first known home for lepers. One- 
third of his revenues he gave to these charities, and for 
their service he built the church of St. Gregory, in 
memory of him who had sent Augustine to England 
and there established the first body of canons regular 
in the country. He further recovered no less than 
twenty- five estates of which his see had been robbed, 
and throughout the kingdom diligently sought to restore 
to the Church not only the lands she had lost, but also 
the honor which had been dimmed by the negligence 
of clergy and of monks. The result of his efforts was 
not only to bring back earnestness in the parishes and 
discipline in the monasteries, and thus make the Church 
of England more like the best continental model, but 
also to give the see of Canterbury an importance it had 
never before realized. He advanced no new claims for 
its supremacy ; he asked for no more than had Theo- 
dore or Dunstan; but he succeeded in securing the 
position for which for nearly five hundred years the 
archbishops had striven, and in adding to its venerable 
traditions and lofty titles the fulness of secular and 
political power. Henceforth, Canterbury was no shadow. 
The advocates of the York primacy urged that Gregory 
had not extended the privilege of Augustine to his 



302 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

successors, to which Lanfranc replied that neither had 
Christ bestowed the gifts he gave to St. Peter upon 
those who should follow in the apostolic see. By and 
by not only would the English dioceses cling to Canter- 
bury, but even those yet within the confines of distant 
Wales and Scotland. 

Lanfranc's vision of the supremacy of his throne in 
Britain was the shadow of Hildebrand's design of the 
overlordship of Rome in Europe. Lawyer, monk, 
statesman and prelate, he was both practical and ex- 
perienced. No small man could have been successful 
in so many spheres. Least of all was he bound by the 
things which influence weaker minds. When a bishop 
on trial questioned the propriety of other bishops judg- 
ing him unless in the full episcopal dress, Lanfranc 
replied, " We can judge very well clothed as we are ; 
for garments do not hinder truth." Nor when urged to 
change the place, the procedure and the assessors would 
he admit that these things had aught more than clothes 
to do with ascertaining justice or with administering 
judgment He maintained to the full the royal suprem- 
acy over all sorts and conditions of men within the 
realm. The national Church, he held, was absolute 
within itself. "As in every human individual," he 
declares, " there is every property of the perfect man, 
so in every Church of the whole Christian faith there is 
the same integrity and completeness." He even agreed 
with St. Augustine that the future Antichrist would 
destroy the liberties, and even the individuality, of the 
separate churches by absorbing their rights and powers 
in himself. The English indeed felt sore when he 
struck out of their calendar the names of many of their 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 303 

saints, but they soon learned that he was as valiant a 
defender of the independence of their Church as had 
been any of the men of their own race. 

William had been dead nearly two years when this 
" enlightened doctor of the Church and the kind father 
of the monks," as Henry of Huntingdon calls him, en- 
tered into his rest — May 24, 1089. His years then 
numbered fourscore and four, for nineteen of which he 
had held the primacy of all England. He was buried 
within his own cathedral, and for four years the Red 
King kept the see vacant and appropriated its revenues. 

Within the shadow of the lofty and snow-crowned 
Alps, at Aosta, near the borders of Lombardy and Bur- 
gundy, in the year 1032, was born Anselm. His parents 
were noble and rich, and from his mother he learned his 
religious ideas and his love of holy things. In his boy- 
ish imagination heaven rested upon the mountains and 
the path to the palace of God lay up the lofty precipices. 
One night he dreamed that he was hastening thither. In 
the plain at the foot of the heights he saw the King's 
maidens idly reaping corn, and he rebuked them for their 
sloth. On reaching the celestial mansion he found the 
Lord with none but his chief butler, all the household 
having been sent to the harvest-field. The Lord called 
him. bade him sit at his feet, and asked him who he was, 
whence he came and what he wanted. Anselm told him 
all, and the Lord commanded the chief butler to set be- 
fore him the whitest bread ; so he ate, and was refreshed. 
Nor, when he awoke, did he doubt that he had been in 
heaven and had spoken face to face with God. The vis- 
ion helped to intensify his devotion. At fifteen he sought 
to become a monk, and even feigned sickness that an 



304 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

abbot for whom he sent might make him one ; but, as 
his father had not consented, the abbot refused. When 
about twenty-three years old, he left Aosta to seek his 
fortunes elsewhere, finally reaching Avranches, where 
Lanfranc's fame was still fresh. Desirous of studying 
under that master, now prior of Bee, he went thither; 
and, though the work and the discipline told upon his 
delicate frame, in 1060, rejecting the large, wealth be- 
queathed him by his father, he took the cowl, and three 
years later followed Lanfranc as prior. This office he held 
for fifteen years, when Herlwin the abbot died, and for 
another fifteen years he governed in his stead. 

These thirty years developed the lofty genius of An- 
selm. He was greater than Ranfranc in the tenderness 
of his soul, the simplicity of his faith, the power of his 
thought and the holiness of his life. His gentleness 
was exhibited as well in his treatment of the boys and 
the novices of his abbey as in his affection for the low- 
er creation. Both William and Lanfranc esteemed him 
highly, the former on his death-bed sending for him. 
Even Rufus listened to his admonitions and consented 
to name him as successor to Lanfranc. At that time 
the king was nigh unto death. He sent for the good 
abbot, who on his coming urged the monarch to con- 
fess his misdeeds, and to promise if he recovered to 
rule with justice and with mercy. The great men of 
the realm besought him to show his repentance by 
remembering the vacant Canterbury; whereupon he 
pointed to Anselm, and said, " I choose yonder holy 
man." Anselm immediately and emphatically declined 
the honor, but the lords and the bishops present thrust 
into his hands the pastoral staff and forced him to yield 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 305 

to their and the king's persuasions. He was enthroned 
amidst the rejoicings of the people, September 5, 1093, 
and consecrated the following December. The king 
recovered from his sickness and repented of his repent- 
ance, though he did not seek to revoke the appointment 
to Canterbury. Before the winter was over the first 
break came between him and the archbishop — the fierce 
bull and the gentle sheep. Anselm fearlessly and severe- 
ly rebuked William the sinner for the unnamable vices 
which were rife in his court. 

More keenly, however, than his reproaches for the 
gross and detestable sins which the king countenanced, 
and even practised, did Rufus feel Anselm's refusal to 
consent to his extortionate taxation of Church-lands. 
"Are not the abbeys mine?" cried the king. — " Yours 
to protect," replied Anselm, " but not yours to waste 
and destroy." The archbishop offered a gift ; the king 
demanded more, and the archbishop went out of his 
presence. " Yesterday," exclaimed the furious mon- 
arch, " I hated him much, to-day I hate him more, and 
to-morrow and henceforth I shall hate him with even 
bitterer hatred." The breach widened more and more ; 
and when Anselm requested permission to go to Rome 
to receive the pall and to lay his troubles before the pope, 
William sought both to prevent him and to take from 
him his see and the allegiance of his suffragans. 

At this time Christendom was distracted by the ques- 
tion of ecclesiastical investiture. The act of giving cor- 
poral possession of a manor or an office was generally 
symbolized by the presentation, say, of a branch or 
banner, after the ancient ceremony of " livery of seisin." 
In ecclesiastical " livery " the symbols were a ring and a 
20 



306 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

staff, and the difficulty arose as to who should invest and 
to whom the one invested should give homage. The pro- 
cess of making a bishop was then, first, homage and invest- 
iture ; secondly, enthronement ; and thirdly, consecration. 
Thus the spiritual function was an appendage to the fief; 
now, the process being reversed, the fief is an append- 
age to the spiritual function. There could be no doubt 
as to the giver of the one, but who should confer the 
fief? Kings and laymen had always done so, oftentimes 
with the effect of filling offices with improper persons 
and of introducing simony. Then Gregory VII. claimed 
the right for the Church. The pope, he held, was the 
lord both of churchmen and of Church-lands. Hence, 
Europe divided : some would receive from the prince, 
and some from the pontiff. For fifty-six years a strug- 
gle lasted between the two theories, occasioning sixty 
battles and the loss of countless lives. Neither side 
could relinquish the right to the allegiance of bishops, 
abbots, monks and clergy; but finally, in 1122, at the 
Council of Worms, was made a compromise whereby 
the right of investiture into spiritualities by ring and 
staff was given to the pope and the enfeoffment into 
temporalities by the sceptre to the Crown. 

This bitter and burning dispute Anselm introduced 
into England. Perhaps he thought the Hildebrandine 
idea the only hope against the tyranny of a cruel and 
avaricious king. Certainly he shrank from kneeling 
before such a one as Rufus, and by placing his pure 
hands between the king's sin-stained hands acknowledge 
him as his lord. In his timidity he looked to the pow- 
erful pontiff beyond the sea for protection, and thought 
could he but reach his court he would find a peace and 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 307 

purity like unto that which he had dreamed of in his 
boyhood days. But Rufus feared neither God nor man, 
nor did he choose to yield one jot or tittle of his rights. 
The archbishop must give him homage or cease to be 
archbishop ; nay, since at this time there chanced to be 
two popes, he must recognize the one which the king 
recognized. Anselm would do neither. Then the king 
secretly agreed to proclaim Urban — whom Anselm be- 
lieved to be the rightful pope — upon condition that the 
pope would not accept Anselm. Rufus even promised 
to give Urban a large annual payment, but so soon as 
the king made the recognition the papal legate flatly 
declared such a compact out of the question. Anselm 
was therefore better off than before, and amid much cere- 
mony received the pall sent him by the pope. The 
strife, however, concerning investiture went on, nor was 
it settled till, in 1107, Henry gave up the right to invest 
by ring and staff. 

The height of the quarrel was reached in October, 
1097. Anselm had pleaded with William for reforma- 
tion. The king refused, and Anselm besought permis- 
sion to go to Rome. Rufus not only declined permis- 
sion, but also declared that Anselm should pay a fine for 
asking it. He further threatened that if the archbishop 
ventured to go he would seize the archbishopric and 
never receive him again. In vain did Anselm plead the 
necessity of the journey for his own soul's health : he 
had sins, and he needed counsel. But the king declared 
that he could have no sin which required absolution, 
and, as for counsel, he was better fitted to give it to the 
apostolic vicar than to receive it from him. Then Rufus 
relented and bade him within ten days to depart, but to 



308 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

take nothing with him which belonged to the king. " I 
have horses, clothes and furniture," replied Anselm. 
" Perhaps some one will say they belong to the king; 
if so, I will go naked and barefoot." The king sent word 
that he did not wish him to go naked and barefoot, but 
the royal messenger would tell him what to take. Once 
more, however, Anselm entered the king's presence. 
With a cheerful countenance he addressed the imperi- 
ous sovereign. " My lord," said he, " I am going. Had 
it been with your good-will, it would have become you 
better and have been more agreeable to all good people. 
But, as this may not be, though I am sorry on your 
behalf, I will bear it, as far as I am concerned, with an 
even mind, and will not, by God's mercy, abandon on this 
account my concern for your soul's health. And now, 
not knowing when I shall see you again, I commend 
you to God ; and as a spiritual father to a beloved son, 
as the archbishop of Canterbury to the king of England, 
I would fain before I go, with your consent, bestow on 
you God's blessing and my own." The king replied, 
" I refuse not your blessing," and bowed his head. An- 
selm made the sign of the cross over it and departed, 
the king nevermore to see his face. 

Three years passed before Anselm again set foot in 
England. In the mean time, he visited Rome, and was 
received by the pope as the patriarch and apostle of the 
world across the sea. He also finished his treatise on 
the Incarnation — the Cur Dens Homo — attended the 
Council of Bari, October, 1098, and made there a mas- 
terly speech upon the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, rested 
at various monasteries, and assisted for a time the arch- 
bishop of Lyons in his episcopal duties. When at Casa 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 309 

Dei, near Brionde, in Auvergne, August, 1 100, tidings 
reached him that William Rufus had been killed in the 
New Forest by an arrow from an unknown hand. The 
new king, Henry I., immediately sent for Anselm to re- 
turn home. Nor could the joy of the nation have been 
greater or the hopes of the Church higher than on the 
September day of that year when he once more entered 
Canterbury. 

The struggle about investiture, however, broke out 
afresh. Both king and archbishop were unyielding. The 
question was carried to Rome, where before the papal 
councillors Henry's ambassador declared, " Know all 
men present that not to save his kingdom will King 
Henry lose the investiture of the churches." The an- 
swer was no less positive : " And, before God, not to 
save his head will Pope Paschal let him have them." 
Then, with that temporizing policy which has been both 
the wisdom and the weakness of the Roman see, the 
pope entered into secret negotiations with the king. 
Henry and Paschal sought to bridge over the difficulty, 
but Anselm stood out to the last. To his mind there 
could be no compromise. In the honesty and straight- 
forwardness of his soul he demanded a clear decision. 
But not till August, 1107, at a gemot held in London, 
was a settlement effected. Then, the pope having con- 
ceded the right of homage, the king gave up the priv- 
ilege of investiture. Henceforth no bishop nor abbot in 
England should receive either bishopric or abbey at the 
hand of a layman : the Church should invest her digni- 
taries, and they should give allegiance to the king. 

This great battle ended, Anselm devoted his energies 
to reformations among the clergy. His hands were 



310 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

made strong by the new authority. He had now power 
over both the persons and the estates of the ministers of 
religion, and that power he exerted for the nation's good 
and for God's glory. But his days were numbered. On 
Palm Sunday, 1 109, as he lay in his bed feeble and sick, 
an attendant told him that his friends thought he was 
going to the better country to keep his Master's Easter- 
court, to which he replied, " If his will be so, I shall 
gladly obey it ; but if he pleased rather that I should 
yet remain amongst you till I have solved a question 
which I am turning in my mind about the origin of the 
soul, I should receive it thankfully, for I know not any 
one who will finish it after I am gone." In the dawn of 
the following Wednesday he died. The monks buried 
him beside his friend Lanfranc in the Cathedral of Can- 
terbury. Later his remains were removed to the place 
where they now rest, under the south-east tower of the 
chapel which bears his name. 

Lack of sympathy with the ecclesiastical position of 
Anselm ought not to hinder the recognition of his great 
genius and. his pure life. Since the days of Augustine 
of Hippo no mightier master of theology had arisen. 
Profound, original and spiritual, few men have exerted 
a stronger influence upon the thought of the Church 
than has he. There was a thoroughness in his work, 
united with a grace of expression and a courteousness 
of manner, which won for him an almost universal ad- 
miration. Even his opponents recognized his gentleness 
and his honesty, and learned, while they disliked his 
conclusions, to love his manliness. Against him the 
breath of calumny has never gone forth. Dante in his 
vision of Paradise saw him " among the spirits of light 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 3II 

and power in the sphere of the sun." If ever man was 
worthy of the title of " saint," Anselm was that man. 
Yet by a curious irony he was in life associated with the 
vilest monarch that ever sat on English throne — William 
Rufus — and was canonized by Alexander VI., the most 
awful embodiment of wickedness that ever received the 
tiara. 

The ancient British Church still lingered on in Wales 
and Cumbria as it had done in Cornwall, but few were 
the days which remained to it. About 960 a Saxon 
bishop was consecrated for the land west of the Exe, 
and in 1072 that country passed under the jurisdiction 
of the first Norman bishop of Exeter. The absorption 
of Wales followed. As far back as 870, Welsh bishops 
began to seek consecration at Canterbury, and soon 
English prelates were placed in Welsh sees. At last 
Anselm claimed for Canterbury supremacy over the 
whole island south of the Mersey and the Humber, and 
in the end his claim was made good. York did the 
same for part of Cumbria, and by the close of the twelfth 
century the British Church had entirely passed away. 
Nor into the episcopate which now ruled over the entire 
land south of the Scottish border came any succession 
from the British bishops. Both English and Normans 
regarded the orders of the Church which they absorbed 
as irregular and defective ; the British themselves seemed 
to have grown suspicious in like manner ; and the fash- 
ion of the times was to look to the see of St. Peter as the 
true line by which the apostolic grace was continued. 
The same process went on in Scotland and in Ireland. 
Everywhere the advocates of the Roman, succession had 
their own way. The old native churches were too weak 



312 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and too much divided to make adequate resistance. As 
their bishops died or were deposed prelates whose con- 
secration was undoubted and in the Roman order fol- 
lowed in their stead. This fact, however, does not 
imply that the churches which received their orders 
from Rome necessarily made submission to Rome. The 
American bishops have an English succession, but they 
are entirely independent of England. 

About the time of Anselm began a movement which 
for many years affected the Church. In 1095, Peter 
the Hermit aroused Europe with* the cry of a crusade 
against the Saracen. The sacred places of Jerusalem 
and of Canaan were in the hand of the unbeliever. 
Where Christ had died arose the crescent, and the faith- 
ful could kneel no more before the place of his sepulture 
nor wash in the waters of Jordan. Nay, the enemy 
threatened to overrun Europe itself, and to make its 
lands a heritage for the False Prophet. To the fiery 
words of the Hermit listened pope and prince, bishops 
and peoples. An army began to form. They who 
took part in driving away the heathen from the Holy 
Land were promised remission of sin and a portion in 
the blessings of heaven. Urban II. was scarcely less 
enthusiastic than was Peter. He urged the knights and 
the warriors of Christendom to take " the blood-red sign 
of Him who died for their salvation " and march to the 
honor and victory of righteousness. Tens of thousands 
answered the call and set out. Their deeds, their suc- 
cesses and failures, have been told in romance and song 
as well as in history. Out of the effort to regain Pales- 
tine arose the famous orders which combined in the 
one person the monk and the knight. In 11 04 were 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 313 

founded the Hospitallers of St. John, and in n 18 the 
Knights Templar. Nor could a work which demanded 
combination and direction fail to strengthen the position 
of the papacy. Christendom was obliged to present to 
the unbeliever a united force, and naturally Christendom 
was brought into closer contact with the head of that 
force. Unfortunately, this was the least of the evils. 
Men were taught that the mere act of going to Pales- 
tine and fighting the Saracen, without giving up habits 
wild or questionable, would secure them salvation. The 
crusader, no matter what his life, was as sure of heaven 
as was the most austere monk or the most faithful priest. 
Nay, the assumption of the cross set free the debtor 
from his creditor, the husband from his family, the 
monk from his cloister and the peasant from his lord. 
By this act the most solemn responsibilities could be 
set aside and the most awful sins atoned for. Hence 
both religion and morality suffered, and, as much money 
was needed to carry on the endless struggle, oppression 
was extensive and unrestrained. Perhaps even worse 
was the effect upon the crusaders of the cruelty and the 
carnage in which they indulged. When they took 
Jerusalem, their fury against the unbeliever was without 
restraint — indeed, rather than aught else, the passionate 
outburst of madmen. They dashed infants against the 
walls or flung them over the battlements, they burnt 
alive the Jews in their synagogues, and their horses 
waded knee- deep in the gore and amidst the slain bodies 
of the Turks. When the slaughter was done, the 
streets of the city were washed by Saracen prisoners, 
and the crusaders thanked God that they had realized 
the yearnings of their hearts. The leader of the Chris- 



3 14 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

tian army, Godfrey, was made king of Jerusalem, though 
he refused to bear the title in a city where his Lord had 
worn a crown of thorns. Other rulers succeeded him ; 
then, less than half a century from the setting out of 
the first crusade, the Saracen began to recover lost 
ground, and, though Europe sent army after army, in 
the end the land remained in the possession of the 
infidel. All that had been done in Palestine was fruit- 
less, but Europe was saved from the encroachments of 
a power which would have blasted her life and have 
paralyzed her energies. 

The charm which the exploits of a Richard and a 
Saladin have brought to this vast and prolonged struggle 
must not hide the evils which resulted therefrom ; nor, 
on the other hand, must the evils be supposed to out- 
weigh the benefits. Begun from a mistaken motive, 
carried on by means and in ways deplorable and dis- 
graceful, and creating many abuses in the economy and 
the life of Christendom, the crusades succeeded in break- 
ing up the isolation of the distant parts of Europe, and 
in hindering the further progress of a civilization as 
dangerous as its religion was false. Had the infidel 
made of Italy, France and England what he has made 
of Turkey, the world by this time would have been 
without hope. 

The successors of Anselm in the see of Canterbury, 
in common with the English people, had their interest 
both in the crusades and in the maintenance of the claims 
of Canterbury over those of England and the rights of 
the Church over those of the State. His immediate 
successor was Ralph d'Escures, who in 1123 was 
followed by William de Corbeuil. Neither man did 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 315 

much for the see or for the country. In 1 1 39 the abbey 
of Bee furnished another archbishop, in the person of 
Theobald, a master of canon law, whose primacy of 
twenty-two years was full of trouble. In the days of 
Stephen, England knew not the blessing of peace. 
Soon after the accession of Henry II., Theobald died, 
and upon the throne of Canterbury was placed one who, 
worthy or unworthy, was destined to bring greater 
glory to his church than had either Lanfranc or Anselm. 
Thomas a. Becket was born in London in the year 
1 1 18 and on the feast of the apostle after whom he was 
named. His father was a merchant, and at one time was 
sheriff of the city — a man of Norman extraction, gener- 
ous impulses, free hospitality, and desirous that his only 
child, Thomas, should have a liberal education and 
admittance to the best society of the age. The lad's 
mother — who some have said was a Saracen maiden — 
in her devotion and piety not only carefully instructed 
her son in the principles of religion, but used, when he 
was an infant, to give his weight in food and clothing to 
the poor. At an early age the boy was placed under 
able masters and proceeded both to school and to col- 
lege, where he easily acquired the elements of learning, 
and then, in accordance with custom, he passed under 
the care and resided in the household of one of the 
great barons of England, who taught him the feats and 
the graces of chivalry. Later he studied theology in 
the University of Paris and civil law in the University 
of Bologna, and subsequently, owing to his father's fail- 
ure in business, for three years he acted as a clerk in a 
lawyer's office. He was graceful in demeanor, majestic 
in presence and tall in person, handsome, with bright, 



316 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

quick eyes, aquiline nose and singularly well-shaped 
and beautiful hands. His fondness for athletic sports 
and martial exercises was equalled by his prowess and 
success in both directions. 

A man of such varied accomplishments, of a vigorous 
and original intellect, and possessed of a suave and gen- 
erous disposition, at once captivating all who knew him 
and ensuring his popularity with the multitude, could 
not fail to make his way in the world and to leave his 
mark upon the times. His public life began when he 
was of the age of twenty-four, and divides itself into 
three periods — viz., thirteen years in the archiepiscopal 
court of Canterbury, seven years as chancellor of Eng- 
land and eight years as archbishop of the patriarchal see. 
In each of these offices he sought diligently to do his 
duty. He had, indeed, a remarkably keen sense of 
responsibility, recognizing the obligations and the re- 
quirements of station ; so that when one suggested that 
the archdeacon of Canterbury might possibly some day 
become archbishop he declared that others were more 
worthy of it than he, and, were he such, he would either 
lose the king's favor or set aside his duty to God. His 
was not a master-spirit — one that controlled life and 
made position, power, wealth and ability subservient to 
its purposes ; rather, with him, the office moulded the 
man than the man the office. As archdeacon he won 
universal praise, notwithstanding the common question, 
An possit archidiacomis salvus esse ? He was enthusias- 
tically true to his patron and superior, Theobald ; and 
when Henry II. gave him the chancellorship, he trans- 
ferred to the king all the loyalty and all the devotion 
which had previously marked his career. The highest 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 317 

civil officer in the realm, he assumed a becoming magnif- 
icence of station ; his hospitality was as boundless as his 
efforts to do his royal master's will were unstinted. But 
in the midst of the pomp and splendor such as no chan- 
cellor had ever before maintained he observed a personal 
abstemiousness rare indeed even among the churchmen 
of his day. He entertained the rich ; he was liberal to 
the poor. The plainest fare and the hardest bed were 
sufficient for him, and he stood unimpeachable among 
the few whose lives were pure and whose reputations 
were unstained. On the Continent he appeared at the 
head of the English chivalry, and not only maintained 
in his train more than a thousand horse and half as many 
knights and gentlemen, and by the splendor of his reti- 
nue suggested the greater splendor of the royalty of 
England, but also on the fields of battle did deeds wor- 
thy of one highly accomplished in the profession of arms, 
winning the admiration alike of friend and of foe. The 
king's enemies had reason to fear the fiery, stalwart man 
who stood at his right hand, and to mourn the desolation 
which his victorious progress wrought. 

Modern theories of ecclesiastical polity and the inabil- 
ity to regard the twelfth century otherwise than in the 
light of the nineteenth make difficult a fair judgment 
upon Thomas as archbishop, but no one who values 
righteousness and equity, the good order which follows 
from a firm and just administration of law, can question 
the good work done by Thomas as chancellor. He came 
to power at a time when England was struggling to 
recover herself from the anarchy and chaos created by 
the weak rule and the lawless reign of Stephen. In 
those nineteen years of woeful trouble justice seemed 



318 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

to have left the land, peace had fled as the summer birds 
flee before the coming of the chill winds of winter, life 
was insecure, the fields were left unsown and the har- 
vests ungathered, and the blood of contending factions 
mingled with the waters of mountain-spring and meadow- 
stream. Thickly scattered throughout the country were 
armed strongholds of rebellious lords, who defied both 
king and right, laid waste the homes and the steads of 
the weak and the defenceless, and immured in dark dun- 
geons or cruelly tortured or put to death any who stood 
in their way and haplessly fell into their power. The 
lawlessness which prevailed in the State prevailed also 
in the Church. Reforms which Lanfranc and Anselm 
had effected were set back. Bishops could not rule and 
priests would not obey. There was neither discipline 
nor punishment, and they who ministered in holy things 
and served at God's altars vied with the laity in the bit- 
terness of their passions and in the looseness of their 
lives. At no time since kings began to reign in Eng- 
land has there been a darker, more unhappy, crueler 
age. Might prevailed — the might of brutal, redeless 
force ; right was disregarded — the right of the weak to 
the protection of the strong and of the subject to justice 
in the courts of the monarch. Against this deplorable 
wretchedness Henry II. — the ruddy-faced Shortmantle — 
made stern and unflinching resistance, and in his efforts 
he was nobly and effectively assisted by the chancellor. 
There was no injustice with Thomas. He gave a right 
judgment in all things, and both king and people rec- 
ognized his power as a statesman and a defender of the 
dignities and the privileges of the law. Evil-doers 
feared him ; rebellious nobles and bishops bowed before 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 319 

him ; the castles of the oppressors were demolished ; 
peace and confidence came back again to the worn and 
wearied land ; and side by side and hand in hand stood 
king and minister, firmly, wisely and with singleness of 
heart to punish wrong, to reward right, and to make 
their realm and their people a power and a glory in 
the earth. 

Possibly, judging from a national rather than from an 
ecclesiastical standpoint, Henry erred when, in 1162, he 
promoted his favorite minister to the archbishopric of 
Canterbury, for the archbishop was next to the king in 
things secular and superior to the king in things 
spiritual, being both a prince of the State and a prince 
of the Church. But that was the only reward Henry 
could give. He probably thought that, as archbishop, 
Thomas would more ably further his purposes, and, 
though some at the time disputed the wisdom of the 
appointment, none doubted that Thomas would as arch- 
bishop carry on what as chancellor he had begun. But 
few understood him. His devotion to duty in the high 
abstract sense escaped the attention of his nearest friends ; 
and it is one of the remarkable characteristics of Thomas, 
testifying at once to his worth and to his kindliness of 
heart, that he succeeded in winning to himself the warm- 
est affection of those around him — of Henry himself as 
well as of the faithful monk who stood bravely by him 
in the hour of martyrdom. To some, both in his own 
day and in ours, Thomas the chancellor is one man and 
Thomas the archbishop is another, but such a judgment 
is superficial and unjust. He was the same in both of- 
fices; only in the one he lived and did his duty as a ser- 
vant of an earthly sovereign and a minister of an earthly 



3 20 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

kingdom ; in the other he lived and did his duty as the 
servant of a heavenly King and the minister of a king- 
dom that is not of this world. When he passed from 
the service of Theobald to the service of Henry, he 
transferred all his loyalty and all his ability to his new- 
master; so now, again, in passing from an office under 
Henry to an office under God he transferred the same 
loyalty and the same ability from the one to the other. 
As soon as he became archbishop and perceived that 
so holy an office demanded a corresponding holiness of 
life, and that in that office he would have to break with 
one of his best friends — even with the king, to whom he 
had been so dear and to whom he owed so much — he 
hesitated not to lay aside the magnificence and the advan- 
tage of his previous station, and to stand before the 
world as an Elijah had done before Ahab and an Am- 
brose before Theodosius. His purity and his abstemi- 
ousness of life are urged on into asceticism and mortifi- 
cation : he keeps long fasts and observes wearisome 
night-vigils, wears coarse and unwashen sackcloth next 
to his skin, submits his back to the scourge and his con- 
science to the confessor, deprives himself of pleasures 
which he loved, and, according to the light of the age 
and to his own ideal of piety, sought to live the life of a 
saintly prelate. It may not have been from conviction 
so much as from a sense of duty. Such things were 
expected of an archbishop : he was an archbishop, and 
an archbishop he would be. He was sincere, therefore, 
though perhaps artificial ; and had he been as success- 
ful in subduing the old fiery passions of his soul as he 
was in conforming his outward life to the requirements 
of his exalted order, he would have passed as a more 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 32 1 

exact likeness of the pure and holy Anselm, whom he 
seems to have set up as his exemplar. 

The change of the gay robes of the statesman for the 
sable gown of the monk was the first outward and vis- 
ible sign of the inward change of allegiance and loyalty. 
Ere long began the conflict between king and primate. 
To a man of Thomas's character it was sure to come, 
since, as archbishop and the defender of the rights of 
the clergy, he could not allow things which he had toler- 
ated, and even supported, as chancellor and the defender 
of the rights of the king. The relationship of Church 
and State was one of the problems of that age. They 
who readily take the side of the State must remember 
that in those days great and good men espoused the 
cause and advanced the claims of the Church. So far 
as high conscientiousness and purity of intention go, the 
ecclesiastical party was far the nobler and the better : 
no one would venture to compare Anselm and Rufus or 
Gregory VII. and Henry IV. ; and if, taught by the ex- 
perience of the ages and by sounder principles of social 
economy, we hold that they were wrong in their theories 
and their judgments, we must admit that their hearts 
were right and their purposes were honest. The prin- 
ciple of feudalism — by which one of low degree became 
the man of one of high degree, and the latter, in his turn, 
the man of another still higher, and so on till the kings 
became the men of the emperor — lay largely at the root 
of the matter. It was thought impossible, as we have 
seen, for the clergy of the most high God to give hom- 
age to the princes and the nobles of the earth, and to 
receive of them the Lord's inheritance; as the yeoman 
swore allegiance to the earl, so did the priest to the 
21 



322 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bishop ; and as the earl to the king, so the bishop to the 
metropolitan ; and as the king to the emperor, so the 
metropolitan to the pope. The emperor and the pope 
were compared — the former to the moon, shining with 
borrowed light ; the latter to the sun, whose brilliancy 
and power were inherent and divine ; and as the prince 
of the day was mightier than the ruler of the night, so 
he who as the vicar of God sat in the chair of St. Peter 
was the lord of him who wore the purple of the Caesars 
and the iron crown of Charlemagne. Thus the secular 
and the spiritual economies were regarded as separate 
and complete each in itself, though the former was in- 
ferior and eventually subject to the latter. The results 
of such a theory were manifest. The Church, with its 
estates; clergy and vassals, was exempt from all temporal 
jurisdiction whatever. As in the reign of the second 
Norman Anselm could not of the Red King receive in- 
vestiture, so in the reign of the first Plantagenet no 
cleric could accept the judgment of a lay court. Nor 
had the State shown itself altogether worthy of the 
trust of equity : the arm of the mighty silenced the 
voice of the just, and too often the king's judges were 
ignorant and regardless of the first principles of law or 
of right. Besides, the term " clergy " did not include 
only men of sacerdotal and monastic orders : all who 
could read and write obtained the privilege and the pro- 
tection of the Church. For them was surer justice in 
the bishop's court than in the king's, and the tenderer 
mercies and the milder judgments of the former were 
better than the tortures and the rude chances of the 
latter. The question was not so much of clergy against 
laity as of scholars against illiterates, of the gentle against 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 323 

the strong. The Crown, however, could scarcely toler- 
ate an imperiunt in imperio. Royal justice might not be 
so righteous as episcopal justice; but when the criminal 
could easily escape from the one jurisdiction to the other, 
in the end there would be no justice at all. Nor could 
the bishop inflict a higher sentence than excommunica- 
tion — a terrible sentence as beliefs and opinions went 
then, but not so terrible as the lash or the block, the 
prison or the rope. The principle of government, as it 
was understood by the kings — who, for the most part, 
were as honestly desirous of the well-being of their sub- 
jects as they were for the maintenance of their own 
power — admitted but one supreme authority, to which 
all men must be equally amenable and responsible. The 
same law must apply alike to priest and layman, to baron 
and bishop ; and, though the law were bad or its execu- 
tion were defective, that did not in any sense change or 
affect the principle. 

But the clergy saw things differently, and the arch- 
bishop strenuously resisted the efforts of Henry to sub- 
ject them and their estates to the royal tribunals. The 
king was perplexed and astonished ; to him it seemed 
as if Thomas had reversed every principle of his life. 
That which he had once denounced he now defended, 
but he was then a statesman and now a prelate, and it 
was his aim to do his duty in whatever place his lot was 
cast. He had no abstract views as to the rights of the 
clergy ; he had no more interest in the great controversy 
of the age, so far as principle went, than the caliph him- 
self; only he was now the guardian of what were known 
as their rights, and therefore those rights he would pro- 
tect to the severing of the king's friendship, and even to 



324 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the shedding of his own blood. A difficult and danger- 
ous man, that — difficult because he could not be reached 
by arguments as to theories, the fact of what was ex- 
pected of him alone swaying him, and dangerous because 
he would stay at nothing to further those expectations. 

To trace out in detail the progress and development 
of the dispute between Henry and Thomas is beyond 
our purpose, but one fact at least was plain : if the Nor- 
man bishops and barons were largely with the king, the 
masses of the English people took even more decidedly 
the part of the archbishop. Thomas was the first man 
of English blood since the Conquest raised to the dig- 
nity of Canterbury. His stand against royal encroach- 
ment, however it may have been regarded by the supe- 
rior classes, was looked upon by the people as the pro- 
test of a patriot against a race which for a century had 
held fast the crown of England. 

The quarrel seemed near settlement when in January, 
1 1 64, the king, prelates and earls met and agreed upon 
the " Constitutions of Clarendon." These constitutions, 
sixteen in number, among other things, subjected the 
clergy to the royal courts, put ecclesiastical dignities 
at the disposal of the king, forbade appeals to Rome 
and made the sovereign the virtual head of the Church. 
Apparently, after much persuasion and many threaten- 
ings, Thomas agreed to their provisions, but he imme- 
diately repented of having betrayed the interests he had 
been ordained to defend. His remorse led him to de- 
nounce both the document and his own conduct. Henry, 
offended beyond forgiveness, determined upon his ruin. 
In the autumn of that year the archbishop was sum- 
moned to appear for trial before the king at Northamp- 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 325 

ton. He did so, but, despairing of justice and fearing 
the severity of his enemies, he managed to escape to 
France, where he remained for the next six years. From 
the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny, about twelve 
leagues from Sens, where in the beginning of his exile 
he had had a gratifying interview with Alexander III., 
Thomas retorted upon his foes beyond the sea with 
denunciations and threats. Some of the clergy he ex- 
communicated, and all he freed from obeying the Con- 
stitutions of Clarendon. In the spring of 1166 he pur- 
posed uttering his ban against the king, but upon hear- 
ing that the king was ill he satisfied himself with urging 
him to repentance. Henry answered by threatening to 
confiscate every Cistercian abbey in his dominions if the 
abbot of Pontigny continued to harbor the archbishop ; 
so Thomas went to Sens, and found there a refuge in 
the pleasant house of St. Columba. 

All efforts at reconciliation failed, till, upon the arch- 
bishop of York officiating at the coronation of Henry's 
son, Thomas was stirred to desperation. In 11 70 the 
king broke his promise of an interview, and the arch- 
bishop immediately excommunicated a number of prel- 
ates and proceeded to England. His reception at Can- 
terbury was magnificent and enthusiastic ; but when, in 
Normandy, Henry heard thereof and listened to the 
appeals of the excommunicated bishops, he made the 
fatal exclamation, " Of the cowards who eat my bread, 
is there not one who will free me from this turbulent 
priest ?" Four knights at once set out for Canterbury. 
On the twenty-ninth day of December they reached the 
city, and, finding the archbishop, they threatened him 
with death unless he absolved the excommunicated 



326 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bishops. " In vain," he cried, " do you threaten me. 
If all the swords in England were brandishing over my 
head, your terrors could not move me. Foot to foot 
you will find me fighting the battle of the Lord." They 
left him, to gather their men ; the doomed prelate, accom- 
panied by some of his clergy, entered the cathedral. 
The chanting of vespers was going on, and with the 
thickening winter-twilight the music added to the weird- 
ness of the hour. Some urged escape, but Thomas 
refused, and proceeded up the steps toward the choir. 
At this moment the knights rushed into the church. 
The gloom of the great building was broken only by 
the thin rays of the lamps which burned before the 
different altars. The group of figures on the choir steps 
could scarcely be discerned. " Where is the traitor ?" 
shouted the knights, but none answered. "Where is 
the archbishop ?" they asked. — " Here," said Thomas. 
" No traitor, but a priest of God. What will ye ?" 
He passed down the steps and stood between the north 
side of the entrance to St. Benedict's chapel and the 
pillar in the transept. " Flee," exclaimed one of the 
soldiers, " else thou art a dead man." — " Nay," he re- 
plied ; " I fear not your swords. In the Lord's name 
I welcome death for God and for the Church's freedom." 
The knights sought to drag him from the sacred place, 
but he set his back against the pillar and successfully 
resisted them. The clergy and the monks had fled; 
only three remained, among them the faithful and heroic 
Grim. Further words passed. " Strike ! strike !" shout- 
ed one of the knights. The archbishop bowed his neck 
and clasped his hands over his eyes. A sword gleamed 
swiftly in the air, and, almost severing the uplifted arm 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 327 

of the true-hearted Grim, it fell upon the bared and 
bended head. Then came blow upon blow, and Thomas 
dropped to the ground. " Into thy hands, O Lord, I 
commend my spirit," were his last words. The mur- 
derers clave his skull and covered the pavement with 
his blood and brains. " He will rise no more," one 
shouted. " Come ! let us be off." 

The calm of night came on ; silently glimmered the 
altar-lamps. By and by the monks and the clergy drew 
near the dead prelate and with the aid of their torches 
beheld the woeful spectacle. Weeping they prepared 
the body for burial, and the long hours they watched 
beside it were disturbed by a terrible storm of rain and 
thunder and by a darkness which might be felt. On 
the morrow no mass was said, no bells were rung; 
quietly and sadly the archbishop was laid to rest in the 
crypt. For a year the desecrated church was deserted 
and left to dust and decay ; then to Canterbuiy came 
an outburst of glory which did more to fulfil the pur- 
pose of Theodore than the greatest of the prelates had 
done. 

On St. Thomas's day, 1171, in the presence of many 
prelates and nobles and a vast congregation, a solemn 
service was held in the choir. Later the excommuni- 
cated bishops, convinced of their errors and sorry for 
their past conduct, came and by the tomb of the mar- 
tyr passed a night in penitence, fasting and prayer. In 
March, 1173, the pope issued his bull of canonization, 
all Europe looking toward the place where now a great 
saint was enshrined and marvellous miracles were 
wrought. July 12, 1176, witnessed Henry himself 
prostrate before the tomb, weeping for the days gone by 



328 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and submitting his back to the whip. Three times did 
each of the eighty monks of Christchurch strike the 
king, and at each stroke were said the words, " Even as 
Christ was scourged for the sins of men, so be thou 
scourged for thine own sins." With the years grew the 
fame of the martyr. Treasures were freely given to 
enrich the place of his sepulture. Pilgrims flocked 
there from all parts of England, and not unfrequently 
from distant countries of Europe. Miracles were per- 
formed in abundance, and for three hundred years the 
martyr of Canterbury was esteemed among the first of 
the saints of Christendom. True, he was not long- 
suffering, gentle or meek; he had neither the ability 
of a Lanfranc nor the grace of an Anselm ; but, sincere, 
disinterested, courageous and chivalrous, he fought a 
battle for the triumph of liberty over regal despotism, 
of moral right over physical force, and of the kingdom 
of God over the kingdom of men. His principles he 
sealed with his blood, and England learned to forgive 
his shortcomings and to forget his infirmities in grati- 
tude for the example he set of freedom and constancy. 
Possibly he would have substituted an ecclesiastical rule 
for a secular one : such seems the drift of his mind ; 
but neither he nor Henry was destined to succeed. If 
history reveals the mind of God, that mind is that 
neither Church nor State, neither king nor bishop, shall 
be supreme, but each in its or his own sphere independ- 
ent, rendering unto God the things which are God's, and 
to Caesar the things which are Caesar's. 

Whatever may have been the intrinsic merit of the 
three prelates who together make the glory of Canter- 
bury, certainly the primacy for which they strived has 



THE GLORY OF CANTERBURY. 329 

remained and they themselves are held in high honor. 
England within that century gave a pope to Christen- 
dom — Nicholas Brakespere, Adrian IV., the only one 
of her sons to whom the tiara has fallen ;. but greater 
than he and better remembered than he were Lanfranc 
the statesman, Anselm the saint and Becket the martyr. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Ei)t Otenturg of j&pleniwr. 

The thirteenth century is remarkable for the intensity 
of its religious, political and social life, and for the many 
able men which it produced ; it is also unrivalled for its 
splendor of conception, grandeur of execution, magnitude 
of design and startling climaxes. As a rule, time flows 
gently onward and advances are made gradually, almost 
imperceptibly, just as infancy changes into youth and 
youth into manhood ; but this is a period in which revo- 
lutions are sudden, transformations are rapid and growth 
is strangely visible. Disregard for the past and a daring 
originality mark its movements. Even the era of the 
later Renascence and the Reformation is not more active, 
more reckless of consequences or more astonishingly 
complex. It contains the noblest and the best elements 
of medievalism, and displays its most magnificent mis- 
takes and its most splendid virtues. Its glory is shown 
in men such as Innocent III., Frederick II., Edward I., 
Thomas Aquinas, Dominic of Castile, Francis of Assisi, 
Roger Bacon and Dante. Like a day beginning and 
ending in clouds, it arises out of an age of mediocrity, 
and, as though the world had become exhausted with 
its violent efforts, it was followed by two centuries of 
gloom and dulness, deepening with every decade until 
night seemed almost to have changed into death. But 

330 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 33 1 

while it lasted Europe was alive with all the vigor and 
ambition of youth, and with restless, dazzling brilliancy 
genius after genius lightened up earth's dark and cloud- 
cumbered sky, and with impetuous and daring boldness 
was done deed after deed the consequences of which 
affect even the nineteenth century and the echoes of 
which will die only when time itself shall cease. 

The social life shows that advances were being made 
out of the barbarism which had prevailed for half a mil- 
lennium into the civilization which has finally made man 
what he is to-day. The country was no more disfigured 
with castles whose gloomy walls and massive keeps 
served alike to intimidate invaders and to strengthen 
oppression ; nor did tyrants confine captives in dungeons 
below the water-line of the moat, either to die of starva- 
tion, cold or rats or, by the ingenious pulling out of a 
plug in the wall whereby the water rushed in, to be 
drowned. Cruel punishments were still administered, 
but it was in the name of law rather than by irresponsi- 
ble whim. The rich began to build open airy mansions, 
in case of need capable of defence, but with gardens, 
wide windows, ornamented doorways, and other features 
which betokened the passing away of the wolf-spirit. 
Within, the rooms made some approach to comfort. 
The baron still ate with his guests and retainers in the 
great hall, his table — a long board upon tressels — always 
standing and his chair a rude bench; but he had a 
" withdrawing-room," hung with tapestry, in which to 
receive his friends and to hold converse with his family, 
and a bedroom in which, upon a mattress raised from 
the floor and made of softer materials than straw or 
leaves, to pass the night. Chimneys — apparently un- 



332 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

known to the Romans and the early English — were 
rapidly coming into vogue. Hitherto, from the fire, 
made of logs and peat and kindled in the midst of the 
hall, and from the torches, sometimes composed of wax, 
but more frequently of bound rushes or of hemp dipped 
in tallow, pitch and rosin, the smoke was left to find its 
way out at a hole in the roof and through the doors and 
windows. Hence the old writers often refer to the sooti- 
ness of the chambers, and to the soreness of eyes caused 
by the smoke and the smother. The lattice, or casement, 
originally made narrow, so that no one could enter 
thereby, though intended for light, and therefore by the 
Anglo-Saxons called the " eye-thrill " and the " eye- 
door," was also a place through which the wind came 
in ; hence its name " wind-eye." At night and during 
cold or storm it was simply closed by wooden shutters 
or covered with canvas, but now glass came into use. 
Furniture and clothes were more elaborate, each article 
unique, being made by craftsmen on the spot. Educa- 
tion, too, received an impetus ; of the universities of 
Europe, fifty-six were founded in the twelfth, thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries — among those of this century, 
Oxford, Cambridge, Padua, Salamanca and Lisbon. The 
students were, indeed, oftentimes so poor that they had 
to labor for their sustenance, frequently receiving a 
license under the seal of the university to beg, but the 
desire for knowledge increased. It has been supposed 
that the " Long Vacation " was designed to allow mem- 
bers of the universities to assist at the ingathering of the 
harvest. In the towns the merchant-guilds and the craft- 
guilds were both asserting and maintaining their rights 
and laying the foundations of commercial prosperity. 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 333 

On the whole, the classes commonly called " well-to- 
do " were attaining to comforts and conveniences and to 
a state of society in which life was gentle and enjoyable. 
But the condition of the poor at the beginning of this 
century was deplorable. In the narrow, undrained and 
unlighted lanes both of city and of village they herded 
together without regard to decency or to cleanliness. 
Their home — if the wood-and-clay-built hovel which 
barely kept out the rain could be called " home " — con- 
sisted of one small, dark, low-roofed and unventilated 
room. The floor was the ground itself covered with 
straw or rushes, which from dampness, trampling and 
refuse became matted and foul, breeding diseases now 
uncommon. Furniture was scarce. On the floor slept 
the members of the family, by their side a dog or a goat 
and on a pole across a corner a few fowl. The food 
was coarse and scanty — a dietary rarely extending 
beyond rye or barley bread ground by hand and baked 
in the ashes, beets and onions, wild berries, porridge, 
salt beef, small-beer, once in a while a fish or a bird 
caught at the risk of the stocks or the lock-up, and an 
occasional bacon-bone or swan-picking from the abbey 
or the castle. They used wooden bowls, and spoons 
of the same material ; even in good society forks were 
unknown. At the table of the rich, instead of on a 
trencher, the meat was served on a thick slice of black 
bread ; and when done with, the bread, with other 
scraps, was thrown into a basket, the contents of which 
at the close of the meal were given to the motley crowd 
of paupers, dogs and swine at the gate. Beggars sat 
and plied their trade at the market-place cross, attract- 
ing attention by a " clack-dish " — an alms-basket with a 



334 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

clapper; hence a familiar proverb. Neither body nor 
clothing was washed ; a bath on coming into the world 
and one on going out sufficed for the former, and gar- 
ments were unremoved till they literally dropped to 
pieces. Work was badly paid, and in the mass of filth 
vice and crime abounded. The utter misery unrelieved 
by any hope of better things is shown by the brutal, 
sottish life, diseased with scurvy, smitten frequently by 
leprosy and commonly ending either by violence or by 
plague. People killed one another, and sometimes, 
when they had no one else to kill, they killed them- 
selves. Thus the masses of Europe, steeped in a fes- 
tering pool of degradation and vileness, dragged out 
their terrible existence ; nor did the hangman's rope, 
though liberally used, either diminish or alleviate their 
wretchedness. 

The blame of this state of affairs lies rather against 
the age than against any department of the age. Never- 
theless, as the better classes advanced in prosperity and 
in comfort the gulf between them and the masses 
widened, and in time became next to impassable. Nor 
were the clergy successful in bringing the ends of 
society together. By the increase of riches and the 
growth of learning they who should have been the 
friends of the poor were too often alienated. The slums 
were left to themselves ; neither priest nor monk had 
aught in common with those who congregated there. 
The churches were filled, but only with the well clad ; 
the ragged, thin-jawed pauper, dirty and diseased, rarely 
entered the sacred precincts. Few thought of him ; he was 
simply passed by. The age was religious without being 
philanthropic and prosperous without being charitable. 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 335 

No one's conscience seems to have been moved at the 
spectacle of misery, no one's heart affected. The monks 
were a respectable body of gentlemen, but from the 
nature and surroundings of their vocation unable to 
touch the outside and the lower world. To their 
dependants they were considerate, and to the stranger 
hospitable ; they gave a home to the indigent, the sick 
and the aged, and afforded a refuge to the defenceless ; 
but they seldom ventured beyond the prescribed duties 
hereby involved and those of study, prayer and fasting, 
of repairing buildings, taking care of lands and illumi- 
nating manuscripts or keeping records. The parish 
clergy were busy enough with the people actually under 
their care, and what leisure they had was devoted to 
tilling the glebe, gathering the tithe, and otherwise 
scraping together the pittance which fell to their lot. 
Ecclesiastical and State affairs largely engrossed the 
bishops ; so that they had neither time nor opportunity 
for the work which lay outside the walls of their palaces. 
Doubtless, in many, the will was good enough, but 
society had heaped upon them tasks which seemed 
greater and more important than the cleansing of huts 
or the lighting of lanes. Kings, barons, yeomen and 
merchants made no pretensions to such work, nor did 
woman dream of the kindly ministries which in the 
latter days were in store for her. The social substratum 
was simply forgotten, and the twelfth century appeared 
to realize neither its danger nor its duty. 

The age, however, had a keen dread of heresy. Men 
recognized with alarm the inevitable tendency of errors 
of doctrine to create errors of life. The long, gaunt, 
serpentine arms of evil threatened to paralyze society 



336 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

in their attempts to touch and envelop its every part. 
For mediaeval heresy was both religious and political ; 
from denying Catholic doctrines it proceeded to ques- 
tion the theories of the papacy and of feudalism. It 
professed inability to understand many things which 
Christendom generally both appreciated and enjoyed. 
When left unmolested, it became defiant, casting aside 
authority, arousing the spirit of rebellion and challeng- 
ing opposition. To protect itself, society was compelled 
to use force ; yet, as weeds in a court-yard grow in spite 
of knife and of salt, heresy grew and, flushed with suc- 
cess, advanced to frightful extremes. Thousands in 
Europe fell into apostasy, and of wide regions St. Ber- 
nard wrote : " Churches without people, the people with- 
out priests, priests without respect, Christians without 
Christ, holy places denied to be holy, the sacraments no 
longer sacred, and holy days without their solemnities." 
But the twelfth century seemed no more able to grapple 
with this question than it was to grapple with the state 
of the poor. Indeed, no solution of the problems seemed 
possible till, with commendable courage, the thirteenth 
century recognized its responsibility and sought to ap- 
ply the remedies which lay at its hand. 

In the year 11 82, at Assisi, was born one whose life's 
work was destined to be given to God's poor. His father 
was a trader and of a kindly disposition ; his mother, 
thoughtful and pious. Francis grew up a merry-heart- 
ed lad, bright, pure and true, fonder of play than of 
books, but giving rare promise of a brilliant career. He 
had the gift of a luxuriant and beautiful imagination. 
A serious illness at the age of twenty-five gave that 
change to his life which led him to hold in contempt 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 337 

that which hitherto he had held in admiration and in 
love. Instead of gayety, amusement and courtliness, he 
saw lying at the gate the leper, the woeful misery of the 
neglected, the hungry and the naked, and there came 
upon him the consuming spirit of self-sacrifice. Could 
nothing be done for such as these ? In gentlest sym- 
pathy he went among them, tending and kissing the 
afflicted, washing their wounds and helping them to 
food and raiment. Now were Poverty his bride and the 
afflicted his peculiar care. His father, greatly irritated 
at this apparent waste of energies, prospects and riches, 
first abused, then imprisoned, and finally repudiated, him. 
The young man went out to live the life of those to whom 
he would minister, saying, ° I have but one, a Father in 
heaven, now," Before long his enthusiasm attracted 
other earnest souls to him. He formed them into a 
society which, having no property or endowment of any 
sort, should reproduce the divine life of service and sac- 
rifice. His charge was, " Sell all that thou hast, and give 
to the poor; then thou shalt have treasure in heaven." 
Into the foul slums of the city the brethren went, mak- 
ing their home with the poorest of the poor, with them 
eating the same coarse food, suffering the same priva- 
tions and enduring the same reproach — glad indeed that 
they might be as was He who had no place to lay his 
head, so that they might bring the weary and the heavy 
laden to the Giver of rest. " Go," said Francis to his 
companions — " go preach peace and patience ; tend the 
wounded; relieve the distressed; reclaim the erring; 
bless them which persecute you and pray for them that 
despitefully use you." He bade them call themselves 
" little brethren " — Minorites — as being less than all 
22 



338 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

others, and the superintendent of each band of workers 
to be styled " minister," the least among them and the 
servant of all. Far and wide the brotherhood extended ; 
the spirit of Francis was like a live fire spreading and 
consuming everywhere. France, Spain, Germany and 
England welcomed the laborers. The world's heart was 
touched at the sight of men who plunged into the depths 
of the abyss of want and wretchedness. Among the mud 
huts of the poor arose the plain mud walls of the friary 
from which every comfort was excluded — a wooden bowl 
for the porridge and sour beer, the floor for a bed and a 
coarse, patched sackcloth garment for dress. Close by 
was the church, simple to painfulness, with no coloring, 
ornamention nor architectural or artistic delights what- 
ever. From the services the accessories of an ornate 
worship were banished : incense, music and candles 
were not for people perishing both in body and in soul. 
The means to be used for the evangelization of the mul- 
titude were earnest, practical preaching, kindly visiting 
from house to house, the example of holy living and 
unquestioning suffering, and avoiding the seclusion of 
the monk and the dignity of the priest. Especially was 
Francis afraid of learning. He felt that scholars and 
students were not fitted for this work, and, lest books 
should corrupt the gospel and culture hinder the salva- 
tion of the poor, he sought to exclude both from his 
order. By the year 12 19 more than five thousand breth- 
ren were sharing in the labors of this remarkable man. 
His own burning ardor and spiritual industry, tempered 
with poetry, grace and tenderness, never flagged. His 
gentle and beautiful soul was manifested in his extraor- 
dinary love of nature. He saw the Creator in all his 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 339 

creatures ; legend said that his glad tidings were told 
even to the birds and the flowers. On the fourth of 
October, 1226, having lived a noble life, in which he 
beheld many fruits of his untiring toil, he breathed his 
last, and, according to his wish, was buried in the place 
of criminals outside his own city. He was canonized 
two years later. Traditions concerning him multiplied 
with amazing rapidity; the world learned to love that 
very poverty it had once ignored, and to-day his mem- 
ory is fresh in the hearts of his countrymen and is pre- 
served in the name of the city on the Californian shore. 
Heresy was dealt with after a different manner, and 
by one of a different spirit. Dominic was born in Old 
Castile about a. d. 1170. Of an illustrious and wealthy 
family, he received a superior education and attained an 
honorable position. He was tender and gentle, consid- 
erate of inferiors and kind to the poor, but his ascetic and 
religious zeal steeled him against his natural impulses 
and led him to acts of unrelenting severity. Thrice 
nightly he flogged himself with an iron chain — once for 
his own sins, once for the sinners in this world and once 
for those in purgatory. Intensely in earnest, enthusiastic, 
indomitable, he lost for ever the virtues of patience, mag- 
nanimity and moderation, using all the force of his soul 
in hating heretics. The depths of his being were stirred 
first to pity and then to passion at the sight of these de- 
niers of the faith. He saw that the clergy were unable 
to reclaim them. To some who reported their failure 
he exclaimed, " How can you expect success, with all 
this secular pomp ? These men cannot be touched by 
words without corresponding deeds. The heretics de- 
ceive them by their simplicity. You must throw aside 



340 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

all your splendor and go forth, as the disciples of old, 
barefoot, without purse or scrip, to proclaim the truth/' 
He acted upon his own principle, relinquished worldly- 
wealth and honor, and preached through the affected 
provinces for ten years with a success which obtained 
him many imitators, but few converts. The Albigenses 
remained perverse, and under the name of a crusade a 
cruel and atrocious war was made upon them by Count 
Raymond and Simon de Montfort. They were deci- 
mated, but neither the sword of the persecutor nor the 
tongue of the preacher removed the evil. Then, in 1217, 
Dominic gave them up, saying, " For many years I have 
spoken to you with tenderness, with prayers and tears, 
but, according to the proverb of my country, where the 
benediction has no effect the rod may have much. Be- 
hold, now we rouse up against you princes and prelates, 
nations and kingdoms, and many shall perish by the 
sword." The remainder of his life he spent in organiz- 
ing his followers into a brotherhood of preachers who, 
like the Franciscans, should live in poverty, but, unlike 
the Franciscans, should engage in the intellectual work 
of the Church. His order spread and became famous 
for its scholarship and its unscrupulous zeal. By its 
great preachers much heresy was uprooted ; it also 
furnished the most numerous and most merciless of- 
ficials of the Inquisition. Dominic died in 122 1, a man 
of startling ability, eloquent, forceful, mighty in organ- 
ization and strong in inspiring confidence — a prince, 
but too dark, harsh and cruel to be loved or to be called 
a saint. 

And what does the world owe to Francis and what 
to Dominic ? Neither succeeded : the poor remained 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 34 1 

and heresy flourished ; but the one taught the lesson of 
sympathy and mercy and the other proved the failure 
of force. 

Feudalism was now in its decline, but chivalry had 
reached its meridian glory. That these systems were 
the perfection of evil, that barons and knights did naught 
but oppress their dependants and spend their time in 
deeds of violence and that society groaned with misery 
under their sway is a view which needs facts for its sup- 
port. Like everything human, they had their abuses, 
their disgraces and their extravagances, but of both 
feudalism and chivalry the essential idea was the con- 
servation of rights. Under the former for obedience 
was given protection. The vassal placed his hand be- 
tween hands that should help him in the hour of need, 
nor did he consider himself less a man because he be- 
came the man of an earl or a prince. The relation was 
both religious and popular : it was sanctioned and sanc- 
tified by the Church and approved and accepted by the 
people. When its purpose was served, it passed away. 
With less scruple than in earlier days men broke its 
obligations, but as yet, upon the strength of feudal vows, 
Frederick and Innocent reigned in splendor and the 
English baronage forced from John the Magna Carta. 
Then came in chivalry to carry on the same work — a 
curious development made picturesque by poetry and 
romance, and destined, with all its grotesque interming- 
ling of consecrated force, extravagant vows, charitable 
selfishness and virtuous wrong-doing, to play an import- 
ant part in the human drama. It had its ranks and its 
orders — its pages, esquires and knights, its Hospitallers, 
Teutons and Templars — and so popular did it become 



342 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

that every youth of gentle birth and not of clerkly tastes 
looked forward to the day when he would lay his hand 
upon the altar and swear to defend the weak, to fight for 
the truth and to bar his heart against all cowardice and 
disloyalty. He practised obedience and feats of arms ; 
he sought by some wondrous deed to win his spurs 
and gather wide renown. Wherever fighting was to be 
done — if it were with foes of the same knightly rank, 
and not with churls and peasants — there was the flower 
of chivalry. If need be, the warrior could drop from his 
exalted pretensions and slaughter outright. With equal 
enthusiasm he could lay lance in rest to recover the holy 
sepulchre, to suppress heretics, to maintain the rights of 
his country, to defend his own order and to win the 
smiles of a maiden. In all this he was the darling of his 
age. Bards sang his praises, priests blessed his arms, 
orators proclaimed his triumphs, and the plebeian mob 
with exultation gazed upon his pomp and shouted at his 
lofty boasts. In the tournament he was rewarded with 
the plaudits of women and with the sonorous and gran- 
diloquent verbiage of heralds. Nor in the annals of chiv- 
alry are there nobler names than those of Edward of 
England, St. Louis of France, Sancho the Brave of Cas- 
tile, Walter of Brienne, Simon de Montfort, Rudolph of 
Hapsburg, Bruce of Scotland, and the greatest and fore- 
most of them all and of the long list from which they 
are taken, the wonder of the age and the marvel of the 
world, the emperor Frederick II. Never again was 
chivalry what it was in the thirteenth century ; never 
again had it so many puissant knights and dauntless 
heroes. When the mercenary soldier came in, the 
knightly soldier went out, even as • the bow disappeared 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 343 

before the musket and the battering-ram before the 
cannon. 

And, though sometimes the knight laid by his armor 
and indulged in the more peaceful pursuits of building, 
farming, stock-raising and merrymaking, there was in 
this century work enough for the men of battle. Each 
nation had its own wars and struggles. The Spanish 
kingdoms were battling in the valleys and the plains of 
their peninsula with the Saracen ; France was aiming at 
the subjugation of Burgundy, Aquitaine, Toulouse and 
Flanders ; England had its strife with Scotland and its 
quarrel between king and barons ; Italy abounded in 
revolutions and plots ; Germany had its rebels ; the 
East and the West fought over Constantinople ; Sicily 
strove for independence ; and everywhere there was an 
unrest, a prolonged and violent effort, the strugglings 
of a continent out of chaos into order. Nor was the 
laudable and time-honored duty of rescuing Jerusalem 
from the infidel forgotten. Four times was the attempt 
made, and with reluctance did men finally relinquish an 
enterprise which had been not only a means of grace 
and a benefit to salvation, but also a help to fill up the 
spare time of Christendom and brighten the dreams of 
priests and of warriors. For the pure, -simple, honest 
faith of the early crusaders had given place to the selfish 
desire for territorial, churchly and chivalric aggrandize- 
ment. Innocent III. thought first of the promotion of 
the papal power ; Frederick II., of the lands of Iolante ; 
only Louis of France remained sincere, testifying his 
heart's faith as on the coast of Tunis he lay dying : " I 
will go up to thy house, O Lord ; I will worship in thy 
sanctuary." 



344 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

The sincerity of Louis was akin to that of the chil- 
dren who in one instance to the number of thirty 
thousand, and in another to the number of twenty 
thousand, set out for the Holy Land to fight the un- 
believer. Their beautiful devotion and their sad sacri- 
fice, giving to their story an unfading charm, show the 
extent of the chivalrous spirit. Even the boys and the 
girls of this century were moved by the same genius 
which touched their fathers' souls. More romantic 
than the German effort was that in France. About the 
year 1213 a shepherd-boy — one Stephen — believing him- 
self to have seen the Saviour in a vision, began in his 
native village, near Vendome, to gather around him 
some children and to urge them to take the cross. He 
succeeded but too well. Setting out with a small com- 
pany, on the way to the sea he obtained followers from 
every town and village through which he passed. Use- 
less was it for parents to endeavor to restrain their 
children from joining the band. The enthusiasm be- 
came intense ; even the king of France was unable to 
check it. Nor were adults unaffected ; they beheld the 
zeal and heard the plaintive chanting of the procession 
of innocents. They encouraged them and supplied 
their wants, for who could tell the great things God 
might accomplish by them ? When the young cru- 
saders reached Marseilles, some shipmasters undertook 
to convey them gratuitously to Egypt or Syria ; five thou- 
sand embarked, but many were wrecked on a rock of the 
Mediterranean, and others on reaching the African coast 
were sold into slavery. A few saw the shores of Pales- 
tine, but it was on their way as captives to Mid-Asia. 
They who did not sail returned to their homes in peace. 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 345 

With them and St. Louis the real crusading spirit 
passed away. 

The strife of force in those days was heartless and 
cruel, but the knights and the warriors regarded them- 
selves as gentle, kind and courteous. They probably 
thought they did their duty in a loving and merciful 
manner — very much as, in the time of Louis XL, Pe- 
tit Andre did his ; certainly, in their disregard of pain 
they were willing to receive the same that they meted 
out to others. As to the enemies of God and the foes 
of the cross, was it not good they should suffer ? There- 
fore the knight pulled out the teeth of a Jew that he might 
save his soul, and broke the bones of a heretic that he 
might make whole and sound his faith. In 1234, when 
a great lady of Toulouse on her death-bed was discov- 
ered to have erroneous tendencies, she was summarily 
condemned, handed over to the secular power, carried 
on her bed to the stake, and there, as the chronicler 
says, " burnt merrily ;" but this was done that she might 
the surer go to heaven. The thought was of kindness 
rather than of cruelty — the spirit of the surgeon who 
cuts off a leg to save a body. The times were rude — 
utterly beyond our appreciation, for the world has be- 
come sensitive. The Albigenses who were slain without 
mercy by the men of Simon de Montfort, had victory 
been theirs, would have slain their enemies without 
mercy. The Apostolicals were certainly as cruel and 
vindictive as their orthodox opponents. Nor did Eu- 
rope shudder when at the vesper-hour on the Easter 
Tuesday of 1282 the people of Sicily, stung by years 
of oppression, rose up and slaughtered in cold blood 
every French man, women and child in the island. 



346 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Nor, again, did Europe shudder when, earlier than this, 
Latin soldiers waded through pools of gore in the streets 
of Constantinople and murdered every Greek they met ; 
much less did Europe blush at the desecration done in 
the church of St. Sophia, when upon the patriarchal 
throne those same soldiers seated a prostitute and around 
her sang their ribald songs. Even the Inquisition, hor- 
rible and infamous, reflected the popular feeling of South- 
ern Europe; they of the northern lands, rougher in 
manner, but gentler in soul, stopped at this. Only, the 
nineteenth century had some crimson as well as black 
streaks in its splendor. 

The papacy displays a wondrous mingling of light and 
of shade, of strong colors and of deep gloom. Among 
the eighteen popes who during this century sat in the 
throne of St. Peter, the contrasts of good and evil, of 
ability and mediocrity, of age and youth, were startling. 
Some were pure, amiable and devout ; others were proud, 
rapacious, despotic and cruel. Innocent III. had the ge- 
nius of a poet, a master and a statesman ; Dante puts 
the hermit-pope Celestine V. within the portals of the 
Inferno and Nicholas III. down in the pit of the simo- 
niacs ; and, while Gregory* X. with commendable energy 
sought to unite Europe in a lasting peace, Boniface VIII. 
united under a strong will the perfection of craft, ava- 
rice and ambition. Not less surprising are the heights 
of grandeur or the depths of servility to which they 
rose or fell. At one moment the world fears the pope ; 
at another, the pope fears the world. There were pro- 
longed vacancies and short reigns : four popes — of whom 
two died without consecration — wore the tiara but a few 
months, and eight only from one year to four or five 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 347 

years each. But under the rule of the mightiest were 
supported the loftiest pretensions of pontifical authority 
and splendor. The marked ability, unswerving purpose 
and keen insight which marked men such as Innocent 
III., Honorius III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV. and Boni- 
face VIII. brought the papacy to a height unknown 
before or since. They believed, and taught Western 
Christendom to believe, that the successors of the Galil- 
ean fisherman inherited his powers and his supremacy. 
To them, said Innocent III., is committed the govern- 
ment not only of the Church, but also of the whole world. 
As the moon receives no glory save from the sun, neither 
do princes except from the pontiff; and as the body is sub- 
ject to the soul, so must the secular be to the spiritual. 
The pope therefore claimed the right to appoint, depose 
and rule kings, to decree the bounds and rights of nations, 
and to settle disputes between monarchs and their peo- 
ple. He alone held the keys of heaven, and he alone 
could bind or loose the souls of men. His decrees were 
sealed by God and his decisions were infallible. So he 
laid interdicts upon nations, deprived offenders of the 
means of grace and the comforts of religion, closed 
churches, consigned his enemies to perdition and barred 
heaven against the world. Nor were these claims seri- 
ously or successfully denied. Philip Augustus humbly 
sought that the interdict laid upon his realm might be 
removed ; John of England consented to hold his king- 
dom as a fief of Rome ; and from the day when Inno- 
cent III. proclaimed himself to be the vicar of Christ to 
the day when Boniface VIII. died as a dog Europe felt 
that the only chance of deliverance from the oppressions 
or the dissensions of princes and of prelates was in ac- 



348 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

cepting the authority of the pope both as the bishop of 
bishops and as the overlord of kings. 

Much besides a misinterpretation of Scripture helped 
to this end. A dried and withered mummy is an object 
of curiosity, but once it was a living man — perhaps a 
powerful and virtuous prince. There were times when 
the life of Europe depended upon the skill and the 
fortitude of the bishop of Rome. In ages when the 
modern nations were slowly attaining perfection and 
permanence, and when political economy was uncer- 
tain, the pope alone had a definite theory and a gen- 
erally-accepted position. To him princes and peoples 
could appeal, and by him was made the nearest approach 
to justice that was then possible. He reigned by moral 
rather than by physical force. His throne was elective, 
and under certain conditions, few and simple, open to 
any Christian in the world. Nor did he neglect the 
people : as a rule, the popes took the side of democ- 
racy rather than that of the kings and the nobles. Their 
exalted position involved a splendor of surrounding 
unequalled in any other court of Christendom. The 
emperor held the stirrups when the pope mounted his 
horse ; kings waited upon him at table ; nobles knelt at 
his footstool. His palaces had all the glory that art and 
wealth could give. Wide lands yielded him an enor- 
mous revenue ; from every part of his jurisdiction riches 
came pouring in as streams pour into the sea. He asked, 
and it was given; he commanded, and obedience was 
rendered. Around him clustered the scholarship of 
the age ; civilization looked to him for guidance and 
commerce sought of him protection. And thus on the 
banks of the Tiber was a blaze of pomp, majesty and 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 349 

power exceeding that of Pharaohs or of Caesars, and 
like unto the sun in its meridian. 

This splendor was reflected in the state and dignity 
of the ecclesiastical princes. Bishops and abbots had a 
grandeur that kings envied and barons failed to excel. 
Lands and houses fell to their portion ; they took pre- 
cedence of lay-lords, and retainers filled their mansions. 
And though luxury and power are deleterious, yet, on 
the whole, the prelates ruled justly and lived purely. 
Even in the worst ages the clergy have always been 
somewhat better than the class from which they are 
taken. 

In this glory there was a wide departure from the 
simplicity of the apostles and the asceticism of the prim- 
itive bishops. The pomp of life and the magnificence 
of service reflected little of the work of men who in 
much tribulation sought to uphold the faith. But times 
had changed : the Church in persecution could not be 
the same as the Church in prosperity. Prelates who 
rule a remnant lurking in caves and catacombs can 
scarcely have the splendor of prelates who rule obedient 
multitudes and live in sumptuous palaces, nor will an 
altar in a desert be like an altar reared beneath the 
vaulted roof of a great cathedral. It was not the 
Church's fault that God had blessed her with abun- 
dance : he had given her glory, and she could not but 
be glorious. The magnificence which rested upon 
her clergy, buildings, services, life and theories was 
not peculiar : it was naught but her share in the magnifi- 
cence of a magnificent age. She was swept along by the 
thought and the life of a century romantic, extravagant, 
visionary and luxurious, but even then, as now, she was 



350 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

unmindful neither of her duty to lift up the fallen nor of 
her work to bring in righteousness among men. " I 
am," said Innocent III., " in such a degree made over to 
others that I almost seem to be altogether taken away 
from myself f and the times had many such who real- 
ized the splendor of self-sacrifice. 

Three great councils were held, and at that of the Lat- 
eran, 12 15, transubstantiation was formally decreed to 
be a doctrine of the Church. The adoration of the host 
became general, and in consequence of a vision vouch- 
safed to a nun of Liege the festival of Corpus Christi was 
instituted. The sister saw a full moon with a small part 
of it in darkness, and this was interpreted to mean that 
the glory of the Church needed for its perfection a day 
wherein special honor should be given to the Lord's 
body. Soon the opus operation was propounded. De- 
cretals were invented and the Scriptures were forbidden 
the laity ; the formulum " Accipe Spiritus Sanctus " was 
introduced into the ordination of priests ; mariolatry re- 
ceived a renewed impulse ; indulgences were defined 
and purgatory was extended ; and the most rapid 
strides which any of the centuries witnessed were made 
toward that system which had its culmination in the 
Council of Trent. The daring of the age is shown in 
the invention and propagation of strange and startling 
doctrines. There is an audacity unique and bewilder- 
ing. Imagination, contradiction and assumption, intense 
earnestness and flippant frivolity, keen logic and foolish 
faith, sparkling wit, mercurial adaptability and impen- 
etrable stupidness, stand boldly side by side. The men 
thought like giants and played like boys. They wrote 
hymns full of reflection and beauty and kept burlesque 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 35 1 

festivals and acted coarse mysteries. They exalted 
prelates and made parodies of them and their offices. 
And all in good faith : the thirteenth century was bold 
enough to think for itself and brave enough to say what 
it thought. 

Now literature begins to break from its ecclesiastical 
environments, and to seek other than religious subjects 
and conventional forms. The transition is of singular 
brilliance. Into its dying supremacy the old school 
casts its greatest powers ; the new school shows in its 
young life promises of transcendent glory. Few divines 
are there to place beside Thomas Aquinas, while be- 
tween Homer and Shakespeare no poet is to be named 
with Dante. These two masters — geniuses of the high- 
est order, representatives of their age and moulders of 
thought for all time — are the princes of their respective 
schools, the one of the late traditional and the other of 
the early renascence. 

The theological renown of Aquinas is enhanced by 
his busy public life and his comparative youth. Though 
only forty-seven years when he died, he had taken a 
leading part in many of the great religious movements 
of the day. His ability as a preacher, a scholar and an 
ecclesiastical statesman, together with his earnest and 
devout life, made him a favorite not only with the pope 
and the Dominican order, to which he belonged, but 
also with the general public. The highest authorities 
in the Church both made use of his great powers and 
offered him remunerative and influential preferment. In 
the midst of most exacting labors, and with a constitu- 
tion seriously weakened by long journeys, unceasing 
anxieties and harassing responsibilities, he wrote his 



352 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Sutnma Theologies — a work upon which his fame mainly 
rests, and which is not unworthy the magnificence of 
the period. This magnum opus he aimed to make oc- 
cupy that position over the minds of men which the 
Church held toward their souls. It should contain all 
knowledge concisely and authoritatively formulated. A 
conception so great was necessarily left unrealized, but 
unflinching and accurate logic, vast erudition, clear per- 
ception and forcible statements have left that part of the 
work which was written without a rival in the realm of 
philosophy or of theology. No other man ever ven- 
tured upon so daring a task ; no other man would have 
thought such a task possible. Thomas Aquinas ranks 
among the doctors and the fathers of the Church ; he is 
the glory of the schoolmen and is set in the midst of the 
saints. He is also one of the princes of a princely age. 
Had there been no Angelic Doctor to outshine them, 
the times would have been made glorious by such 
Franciscans as Duns Scotus, Bonaventura, Roger Bacon 
and Alexander of Hales, and by the famous, learned 
and eloquent opponent of the mendicant orders, Wil- 
liam of St. Armour. Others follow fast after them. 
Nor may the Dies Iree be forgotten. Its sublime theme, 
sonorous language and awful grandeur, reflecting the 
deep thoughtfulness and reverent fear of the age, make 
it one of the most celebrated hymns of Christendom. 
The laurel of a master is given to its author, Thomas 
of Celano. Only a mind stirred by genius and im- 
pressed with the nearness and stupendous consequences 
of the End could have created it ; only they can appre- 
ciate it who have a like consciousness of the things 
unseen. 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 353 

More, however, than the theologians and statesmen, 
the popes, princes and poets, of the thirteenth century, 
is that light of all time and first-fruits of the new life, 
the man of Florence, Dante Alighieri. As representing 
in perfect balance the imaginative, moral and intellectual 
faculties he has been called the central man of all the 
world. The only peer of Homer and of Shakespeare, 
he stands with them far above the greatest of all other 
poets, ancient or modern. Indeed, he is in his sphere 
mightier than were in their spheres the mightiest of his 
contemporaries. Creative, original and daring, yet he 
neither on the one hand sets himself in antagonism to 
the religious spirit, the theological dogmas or the social 
life of his age, nor on the other hand avoids gathering 
fruits and flowers from the gardens tended by the 
" songsmiths " of past generations. His genius is made 
to express the thoughts and the emotions of the times 
— their uniqueness, magnitude, power and magnificence. 
With glowing imagery, masterly command of metaphor 
and the highest development of descriptive power he 
unfolds and brings out into bold relief the doctrines of 
the Church, and especially her teaching of the future 
state. He becomes terribly vivid and engrossingly 
realistic. His imagination not only compels the obei- 
sance of the fancy and of the intellect, but in its lofty 
aquiline sweep, its ocean-like comprehension and its 
clear delineation also bewilders and overpowers. No 
other poet obtains so completely lordship over his 
disciples, not merely bringing them face to face with 
sublime and awful themes, but leading them captive- 
like into the very heart of the most tremendous thoughts 
that can be conceived. At times the reader wanders on 

23 



354 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

as in a country of rare delights, exquisite figures, ex- 
panding, bursting passions and tender melodies exerting 
a subtile charm over the soul, even as the soft June 
sunlight streaming through the fresh foliage kisses and 
plays with the woodland waters or with the violets in 
the bank; then come moments when over the sky 
gather the clouds, dense, black, thunder-charged, and 
through the gloom and the terror the soul passes 
trembling every step of the way. The Inferno is def- 
inite as an ordnance map. There is no confusion : 
every lake, river, wood and mountain is defined and 
described with precision so exact that imagination 
appears to be reality. In this Dante is akin to the 
earlier depicters of the nether-realm, who write as 
though their feet had actually stood beside the abysmal 
valley where the lamentations make the air tremble, and 
as though their eyes had seen the herds of naked souls 
upon the arid, plantless plain. One after another, like a 
long line of cranes, the spirits of the lost pass through 
the gloom to the gulf of restless suffering ; again, they 
fall into the turbid lake as leaves drift in the autumn 
wind. Here an alpine bank encloses a moat of blood 
where lie pillagers and tyrants watched by centaurs 
who shoot with shafts whatever soul emerges from the 
gore; yonder are the fires within which each spirit 
swathes himself with a robe of burning flame. Anon 
appear the pit of boiling pitch, the cavern of dolorous 
tortures, the realm of endless ice and the putrescent 
lake in which are gathered grim diseases. All this, 
and more, the man beholds. No wonder when the dusk 
champaign trembled violently and the land of tears 
fulminated its vermilion light even to him came the 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 355 

fear-elf. Every demon, soul and beast is drawn with 
the same. clear pencil. Unlike Milton, whose indistinct- 
ness blurs his best work, and whose power fails to excite 
more than pity for his Satan, Dante presents a most 
perfect portraiture of fiendish nature. His words like 
drops of fire burn into the mind, the pain they create 
to be assuaged by the sweet and lovely pictures of the 
Pamdiso, but the marks to remain for ever. No one 
can forget the scenes spread by this awful master. 

Dante had, indeed, precursors. Assyrian literature 
describes the visit of Ishtar through the seven gates to 
the " house in which the dwellers long for light " — the 
subterranean abode of gods, ghosts and demons. Not 
unlike this conception of the under-world is the Homeric 
idea, while with the same realism Virgil guides ^Eneas 
amidst the shades. The Edda speaks much of the un- 
pitying, voracious, black-hued Hela, who rules the death- 
realm. There the atmosphere is pale and dim — a ghastly 
twilight in which like bats flit the souls of the lost ; at 
times the gloom deepens into pitchy darkness intermit- 
tently illumined with the glow and flash of hidden fires. 
Nor was the Christian imagination less fertile. Bede 
narrates the experiences of several earthly visitors to 
Hades, and speaks of the valley there one side of which 
was covered with burning flames exceeding terrible and 
the other side swept with raging hail and the cold of 
snows. Each steep was full of the souls of men, which 
incessantly and violently were cast hither and thither 
across the chasm by the force of a tempest. In the 
smoke were spirits uttering terrible shrieks and gleam- 
ing like sparks blown in the wind. William of Malmes- 
bury gives the story of Charlemagne's walk on the banks 



356 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

of the boiling river and amid the furnaces of pitch and 
brimstone. In Roger of Wendover, under the year 
1206, is an extended account of an Essexman who was 
taken to the three places of the departed. At the out- 
set a foul and agonizing stench from the bottomless pit 
affected poor Turchill, whereupon his guide told him 
that it was evident he had not been honest in tithing his 
crop. In purgatory was a lake incomparably cold and 
salt through which every soul had to pass ; should the 
water become unbearable, the soul might use the bridge 
which lay over the lake, only the bridge was thick with 
thorns and stakes. Later the visitor was shown the joy 
of the demons in torturing sinners who came into their 
power, and he saw the caldrons in which, he says, " the 
spirits were heaped together boiling fiercely, and their 
heads, like those of black fishes, were, from the violence 
of the boiling, at one time forced upward out of the liquid, 
and at another time fell downward." When Turchill re- 
turned to life and told his vision, he moved many of his 
hearers to tears and bitter lamentations. In the same 
author a condemned ghost is made to say to a living 
friend, " Stretch forth your hand and receive only one 
drop of my bloody sweat." Roger adds, " The live 
man received it, and it perforated his skin and flesh as 
if with a heated iron, making a hole as large as a nut." 

The pictures of heaven are happier, though, strange- 
ly enough, seldom as impressive or as graphic. Even 
Dante does not enthrall in the Paradiso as in the Inferno. 
The scene beyond the stars has the overspreading of 
soft, undefined haze, an imperceptible blending of gen- 
tle colors and a suggestion of flowers, music and rest — 
a spirit which upon the soul dreamily steals and lulls it 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 357 

into rich and indolent felicity. If amid the wealth of 
exquisite delights there comes another joy, it, like the 
ruddy maiden in the light-glow, is scarcely seen and for 
appreciation needs decided effort. Interest is aroused 
and attention kept alert by the mingled flame and smoke, 
the tumult of storm, the crack and burst of earthquakes, 
the weirdness of a meteor-flashing sky, and the toppling, 
bending, roaring avalanche of black ocean-mounds. This 
tension neither holds nor wearies beyond the forest which 
borders the heavenward edge of the Purgatorio. The 
mind has peace, the terror has passed away : Dante is 
beyond the steep and narrow ways and beholds the flow- 
erets and verdure of the sunlit land. In the lower realm 
he had for a guide the masculine and vigorous Virgil ; 
now he is led by the Beatrice of his early love, the maid- 
en beautiful, saintly, gentle and influenced more by emo- 
tion than by thought. Woman never becomes sublime ; 
she is the snow-white rose of God's garden, fragrant 
and lovely, and not the rugged mountain crowned 
with clouds and bleached with storms. Her soul, 
pure as the touch of God and delicate as the tinted 
pearl, can receive grace 

" even as water doth receive 
A ray of light, remaining still unbroken." 

With such a one the poet wanders through the blissful 
realms. He met her as day began — 

" The eastern hemisphere all tinged with rose, 
And the other heaven with fair serene adorned" — 

and the strength of the old love came back. With joy 
she cries, 

" Look at me well ; in sooth I'm Beatrice !" 



358 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Together they pass into the endless progression of glory ; 
the clouds of radiance enwrap them, and the passionate 
affection purifies even as it burns. Dante marvels at the 
visions, but the light comes only from the spirit by his 
side till he beholds the Lord of angels ; then 

" all my love was so absorbed in him 
That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed." 

Once the gentle guide asked her earthly lover, 

" Why doth my face so much enamour thee 
That to the garden fair thou turnest not, 
Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming? 
There is the rose in which the Word divine 
Became incarnate ; there the lilies are 
By whose perfume the good way was discovered." 

Heaven is not reached always according to expectations : 

" For I have seen all winter long the thorn 
First show itself intractable and fierce, 
And after bear the rose upon its top; 
And I have seen a ship direct and swift 
Run o'er the sea throughout its course entire, 
To perish at the harbor's mouth at last." 

To the end the sweetness of the Paradiso is sustained ; 
perhaps the spirit wearies, for few have the saintliness 
of a Beatrice or the simplicity of a Dante. But the 
dream remains — the most beautiful dream of the ages 
and the grandest expression both of the epoch of 
splendor and of the Christian consciousness. 

The thirteenth century was the golden age of English 
churchmen. The Church, indeed, between king and 
pope, suffered many things — spoliation, tyranny and 
grievous wrongs. Both sought her subjection, in order, 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 359 

as the chroniclers put it, that they might not only tear 
the fleece from her sheep, but also pick the flesh off their 
bones. But the clergy, strong in ability and in courage, 
fought vigorously against the exactions of the papal and 
the regal taskmasters. Supported by the people, they 
defied the pope and told the king of his crimes. In vain 
did the pontiff excommunicate and the monarch im- 
prison : the age was one of heroes, and heroes care 
naught for such things. The control was broken, and 
men followed the bent of their nature, reckless of conse- 
quences, either to good or to bad. Among the clergy 
were some splendid for their extravagance and their 
wickedness, but, as Matthew Paris, writing in 1248, ob- 
serves, " amongst the angels the Lord found a rebel ; 
amongst the seven deacons, a deviator from the right 
path; amongst the apostles, a traitor; and God forbid 
that the sin of one or of a few should redound to the 
disgrace of such a numerous community !" Hence the 
brutality of Boniface of Canterbury, who wore armor 
under his robes and personally assaulted the defenceless, 
or the wasteful pomp of an archdeacon of Richmond 
who on his visitations rode with ninety-seven horses, 
twenty-one hounds and three hawks, should not over- 
shadow the graces and the virtues of the great body of 
churchmen. Wrong-doers did not go unrebuked : the 
people resented the luxury of Giffard of Worcester 
and called De Roche of Winchester a " Bishop of But- 
terflies." And if some of the prelates were most dis- 
tinguished as chancellors and treasurers of the realm, 
others displayed a diligence and fearlessness in their 
pastoral work and a purity and devotion in their life 
which won for them the reverence of all men. None is 



360 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

more worthy of a place in the calendar of saints than 
Edmund Rich of Canterbury, the irreproachable Walter 
de Gray of York, or Thomas de Cantelupe of Hereford. 
The two greatest bishops in England, alike celebrated 
for their ability, faithfulness and holy life, were Grosse- 
teste of Lincoln and Walter of Worcester. Not only 
were they able administrators of their dioceses, but none 
more boldly vindicated the rights of their country against 
tyranny, of whatever kind. Sewall, archbishop of York, 
died uttering an appeal against the pope — who for years 
had grievously harassed him — to the supreme and incor- 
ruptible Judge of heaven. Diversity of gifts marked the 
episcopate; most bishops were builders, many were 
scholars, some great preachers, others, like Bruere of 
Exeter, crusaders, and others, like Mauger of Worcester 
and Farnham of Durham, physicians. In Robert de 
Stitchill, bishop of Durham from 1260 to 1274, is an 
illustration of a giddy boy becoming a wise man. One 
Sunday, when a lad, for some indiscretion, he was or- 
dered to sit on a stool in the midst of the choir. The 
disgrace touched him so deeply that he caught the stool 
with his foot and kicked it out of the choir among the 
people outside. He then made up his mind that night 
to run away; but when putting his determination into 
effect, as he passed by a cross on the north side of the 
choir, he heard a voice bidding him return. He obeyed, 
and, applying himself to the study of the Scriptures, in 
a short time he was distinguished for his attainments 
and his regularity of life. When made bishop, his con- 
duct was an honor to himself and a benefit to his see. 
His successor, Robert, was from Lindisfarne — a man by 
nature peaceful and friendly, but his mother had a spice 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 36 1 

of perversity. She was poor ; and when Robert became 
bishop, he provided for her in a way more suitable to 
his rank than to her taste. On visiting her on one 
occasion and asking her how she did, she answered, 
" Very badly." — " Why, sweet mother ?" he inquired. 
" Do you want for anything — servant or handmaid, or 
any needful expense ?" — " No," she said ; " I have 
enough of everything ; but when I say to one fellow, 
' Go,' he runs, or to another, ' Come,' he gets down on 
his knees, and all goes on so smoothly that I cannot 
ease my mind by getting angry." This bishop died 
in 1283. 

Richard of Wych, bishop of Chichester from 1245 to 
1253, is both a good representative of the mediaeval 
saint and also an illustration of the opportunity for 
advancement which the Church gave to every man of 
ability, notwithstanding his birth or his property. He 
was the son of a poor farmer in Worcestershire, but by 
dint of hard toil and skilful management Richard se- 
cured sufficient means to enable him to pursue his 
studies at Oxford. His life there was severe. He and 
two companions had but one warm tunic and one hood- 
ed gown between them, in which they attended lectures 
by turns. Fire was a rare luxury : when cold, the 
student had to cast aside his books and pen and run 
about to warm himself. The usual fare consisted of 
vegetables and bread with a very little wine ; on high 
festivals, fish and flesh. But in his desire for knowledge 
Richard cared little for such inconveniences. In time 
he was made Master of Arts at Oxford ; he read at 
Paris, and for seven years he studied law at Bologna. 
Wherever he went, his fine intelligence, self-denial and 



362 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

pure, affectionate heart won him honor and love. The 
fame of his piety and his learning reached England. 
In 1235, Oxford made him chancellor of the university, 
and soon Edmund Rich — once his professor, but now 
archbishop of Canterbury — gave him the same office 
in his diocese. When Edmund died, Richard studied 
theology, was ordained priest and became vicar of Deal, 
in Kent ; but that pious and learned leisure which he 
coveted was not long for him. In 1245 he was made 
bishop of Chichester. He found his diocese in so bad 
a state that for two years he was obliged to live upon 
the hospitality of his clergy, and to travel on foot from 
parish to parish across the downs of Sussex. Between 
his journeys he stayed with a poor priest, Simon of 
Tarring, and occupied himself in those arts in which 
he had once excelled in the orchards of Worcestershire. 
When better times came, his zeal grew more intense. 
He preached in all parts of his diocese, visited the sick 
and not unfrequently with his own hands prepared the 
dead for burial. His charities were bountiful to reck- 
lessness. " Your alms," said his steward, " exceed your 
income." — " Then sell my plate and horse," was the 
prompt reply. His brother remonstrated, but the bishop 
replied, " Our father ate and drank out of common 
crockery, and I have no need of gold and silver plate." 
His discipline was rigid. " Never," he said, " shall a 
ribald have cure of souls in my diocese of Chichester." 
Rectors were to have but one parish, and to reside 
therein. They were not to dress as laymen, wear long 
hair or indulge in the chase, but to minister reverently 
and to care for their people devoutly. As he had lived 
when poor, so he lived when rich — the same frugal fare 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 363 

of his old Oxford days and up before the birds arose to 
say his prayer. " Shame on me," he would cry, " that 
these irrational creatures should be before me in singing 
praise to God !" Thus this simple-minded, learned and 
holy man won the love of his contemporaries and the 
admiration of posterity. He wore himself out with 
work. In his last illness he went to Dover to consecrate 
a church for the poor ; he returned to Chichester to die. 
To an old friend by his bedside he said with a peaceful 
countenance, " I was glad when they said, Let us go 
unto the house of the Lord." His last words expressed 
the faith of his soul : " Lord Jesus Christ, I thank thee 
for all the blessings thou hast given me, and for all the 
pains thou hast endured for me ; so that to thee apply 
most truly those words, ' Come and see if there be any 
sorrow like unto my sorrow.' Thou knowest, Lord, 
how willingly I would endure insult and pain and death 
for thee; therefore have mercy on me, for to thee I 
commend my spirit." Tranquilly he passed away into 
the heavenly land, his memory among men to remain 
for ever and his name to have an honored place in the 
Anglican calendar. The farmer's son became a famous 
scholar, a great bishop and a glorious saint. If after his 
death wondrous traditions concerning him multiplied, 
it should be remembered, as has well been said, that 
legends are like the clouds which gather upon the 
mountain-summits and show the height and take the 
shapes of the peaks about which they cling. They are 
a testimony to the worth of the man of whom they 
speak; and worthy indeed was Richard of Wych. 

Bishops such as these sought above all things else to 
maintain order in their dioceses ; with a commendable 



364 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

earnestness they endeavored to make their clergy living 
examples to the flock of Christ. Some would have 
greater decency in the sanctuary; hence a bishop of 
Worcester in 1238 forbade the canons of Bristol to fly 
like bees out of the choir as soon as service was over. 
Others laid stress upon moral observances, as did the 
archbishop of York in 1201 concerning the keeping of 
the Sabbath. The record of his efforts in this direction 
is given by Roger de Hoveden, and the chronicler sup- 
ports the duty of abstaining from all work on the Lord's 
day by some singular stories. Bread baked on the eve 
of Sunday became corrupt, millwheels stopped of their 
own accord, and several people who disobeyed were 
struck with paralysis. Roger of Wendover tells of a 
Norfolk washerwoman who, pursuing her avocation on 
Saturday evening after due warning, was suddenly seized 
by a small black pig. The pig sucked till he drew 
blood ; she was so weakened as to be obliged to give 
up all work, and, having for a time begged her bread, 
at last she died. Such gossip is indeed puerile, but it 
is recorded with due solemnity and in honest faith, and 
betokens an earnest desire to maintain a righteous law. 
Similar attempts were made in the direction of personal 
purity ; people learned to blush at sin. The world, loved 
the splendor and the glare of sunlight, but the world 
honestly wished the splendor and the glare to be as 
clean and as healthful as are those of the sun. 

The art and the grandeur of the age are in nothing 
more manifest than in the buildings which were raised 
to the glory of God and now adorn especially the moth- 
erland. The early English style of Pointed architecture 
was coming in to make lovely cathedral, minster and 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 365 

abbey, and with sculpture to give them the spirit and 
the sweetness of ah ever-living poem in stone. Their 
marvellous beauty, sublime design and lavish costliness 
fill us with wonder; their sweeping arches, lofty shafts, 
traceried windows and delicately-wrought figures sub- 
due our soul. What is more majestic than the Cathe- 
dral of St. Cuthbert, the noblest Norman structure in 
all England, standing so proudly and boldly on the 
heights above the broad and lordly Weir ? what more 
graceful than rose-tinted Lichfield or soaring Salisbury, 
or more superb than glorious Canterbury or stately 
York ? Yet these are but a few out of many, each of 
which is in itself a distinct creation, and all of which 
derive their force, attractiveness and delicacy first from 
the wealth of imagination displayed, and secondly from 
a close and loving imitation of nature in its woodlands 
and its flowers. Even the ruins partake of the same 
glory. The deepest emotions are stirred by Croyland 
and Peterborough in the fenland, Rievaulx and Foun- 
tains in Yorkshire, Tewkesbury near the Cotswolds and 
Furness in the Vale of Deadly Nightshade by the ocean- 
side. And there are Glastonbury in the isle of Avalon, 
with its legends of Joseph of Arimathea and King 
Arthur; bits of Bury St. Edmund, fragrant with the 
memories of Abbot Sampson ; Tintern, amid the green 
meadows and the wooded hills beside the tide-stirred 
Wye ; and Beaulieu, " the abbey of the beautiful spot," 
with Netley, among the gentle hills and lovely wilds 
and charming scenery of Hampshire. Others no less 
renowned either in history or for their beauty of archi- 
tecture and surroundings are scattered over the land, 
and, though one may not assent to St. Bernard's eulogy 



366 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

of the monastic life so beautifully rendered by Words- 
worth — 

" Here man more purely lives, less oft doth fall ; 
More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed ; 
More safely rests, dies happier ; is freed 
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains, withal, 
A brighter crown " — 

yet in beholding these wonderful creations of the dis- 
tant past and contemplating their historical associations 
and sacred memories one cannot but be touched as was 
Barham in Westminster Abbey — the most glorious of 
all earth's glories : 

"A feeling sad came o'er me as I trod the sacred ground 
Where Tudors and Plantagenets were lying all around; 
I stepp'd with noiseless foot, as though the sound of mortal tread 
Might burst the bands of the dreamless sleep that wraps the mighty 
dead." 

These buildings were the outcome of a deeply-relig- 
ious spirit and the offerings of a people who believed 
that no temple could be too beautiful or too costly for 
the worship of the Lord of nations. The extravagance 
of devotion displayed itself both in the massive and en- 
during walls and towers and in the adornment of choir 
and nave and aisle. Richly-colored windows, costly 
shrines, jewelled altars, figures and pictures of rare 
workmanship, Scripture scenes set forth upon the 
walls, monuments and effigies, and the most entran- 
cing effects of light and shade, of delicate tracery and 
exquisite carving, of artistic combinations and startling 
contrasts, met the eye on entering the sacred edifice. 
Here in the lofty clerestory were angels winging their 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 367 

way from heaven to earth in the ministry of the King ; 
yonder was an angel of loveliest grace holding in his 
hand the baptismal waters and displaying in his face the 
sweetness with which the Lord Jesus looked upon the 
babes brought to him. Nothing, indeed, was left un- 
done, no cost or labor was spared, that was likely to 
move the spirit of devotion or show honor to God. To 
the people of those days the church was a consecrated 
building in which the Almighty was ever present to be- 
hold the beauty of Sion and to give blessing to his peo- 
ple. From break of day till the fading of the evening 
crimson the doors were open and either hallowed service 
or silent prayer was going on. The place seemed liv- 
ing ; the misty depths appeared rilled with a luminous 
cloud, and the very effigies looked as though they 
prayed in their sleep. And when the murmur of the 
bells fell upon the gardens and orchards, the hillside 
and river-meadow, or when the organ-roll echoed amid 
the lofty arches an^i voices sweetly sang the hymn to 
Christ, the hearts of the people of those days were 
touched with the same unutterable longings and divine 
emotions which now come to men, and which doubtless 
even angels feel in the land above. 

Amid the legends and the traditions of these build- 
ings, if some were childish and grotesque, others were 
beautiful and true. Many a precious thought was con- 
veyed under these better stories. In this parish, men 
were told, when the church was in building, an invisible 
hand had thrown down the walls, broken up the founda- 
tions and removed them to a more desirable site — a 
proof that God demands and will give his benediction 
only to the best. In another parish the story ran that 



368 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

whilst the earthly workmen slept a mysterious power 
had wrought, and thus the fair edifice arose with the 
silence and the grandeur of that temple in which was 
heard the sound neither of hammer nor of axe. Even 
the legend of the dead arising, " clad in war-stained 
armor," in one of the cathedral graveyards to defend 
the man who had never entered the place without pray- 
ing for them at least suggests the quiet conscience, the 
impregnable defence, which are theirs who have never 
suffered friend to leave this life save with the remem- 
brance of kindly deeds and loving words. One of the 
sweetest traditions is of the two sisters who sleep be- 
neath a canopied tomb in the minster at Beverley. The 
youngest and the last of the convent, after the midnight 
services of Christmas eve they passed out of the choir to 
watch the star of the Nativity. From the tower-heights 
they eagerly gazed toward the east; then, exhausted 
and overcome by the cold, they dropped asleep. When 
awakened, they said that they had had dreams of para- 
dise — warning that the angel of death had touched them. 
" Go in peace, my daughters," said the abbess ; and in a 
brief while the tender spirits passed away, and the bells, 
rung by unseen hands, poured forth a peal of joy for 
two more lilies planted in the heavenly Eden. Such 
stories have the delicate grace and the sympathetic 
poetry which are expressed in the churches themselves. 
An age in which they abound is neither dark nor fool- 
ish. It may have many weaknesses and many shadows, 
but it will also be suffused with the radiance of a noble 
life. 

The abbey furnishes another suggestive picture of the 
times. One of the monastic virtues was hospitality; 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 369 

and when the long shadows fell eastward, travellers and 
traders availed themselves of the shelter and the food 
offered by the brethren. The best that the farm, the 
chase and the stream could supply was set before the 
guests. In the hospitium, crowding the long tables, re- 
counting adventures or completing bargains, the nobles, 
knights and ladies, the merchants and minstrels, the 
pilgrims, palmers and beggars, presented a motley ap- 
pearance and made a babel of confusion. Their noisy 
tongues were scarcely stayed while perchance one told 
a strange story or another sang a pleasing ballad. Free 
both in heart and in manner, by quip and jest, by mim- 
icry, legerdemain and reminiscence, the sons of gayety 
made the evening hours short, caused the black oaken 
beams to echo with boisterous mirth, and brought the 
irrepressible smile into the sedate countenances of the 
sub-prior and his servitors. The world was there — the 
rattling of armor, the rustling of silk, the creaking of 
leather; the dame of high degree with her pages and 
her hawks, the yeoman with his dogs, the limitour, 
plump, circumspect and foul, the warrior garrulous of 
battles and heroes, and the chapman watching his wares 
and reckoning his gains. Outside, the rain and the 
night ; within, the blazing logs, the merry company and 
the wine of fair vintage. And not far away, alone in the 
silence and the gloom of the cloister, was some brother 
watching unto prayer. He heard no sound of revelry — 
naught but the sobbing wind or the hooting owl ; he saw 
amid the shadows only the form of another like himself 
and the tremulous rays of the lychni at a shrine. When 
yonder earthlings are quiet in sleep, he will still be 
there ; that is his life, and is there not a reward promised 

24 



3/0 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

to them that look for the coming of the Son of man ? 
Perhaps rather than in the picturesque assembly in the 
hospitium the noblest splendor of the age appears in the 
lonely monk of the cloister. 

One scene, memorable both for its display of heroism 
and for its consequences, expresses much of the spirit 
of this century. 

On an early summer day, 1215, in a meadow beside 
the Thames, not far from Windsor, two bands of armed 
men met for conference. In the one company was John, 
king of England ; in the other, Robert Fitz- Walter, 
leader of the barons and " marshall of the army of God." 
Neither the purpose nor the result will ever be forgotten. 
The weak and gloomy sovereign had filled up the meas- 
ure of his iniquities. For sixteen years he had reigned 
in oppression, injustice and cruelty. His life was one 
mass of lust and violence. He wronged baron and priest 
and cruelly treated freeman and villain, forfeiting their 
privileges, wringing from them the means to support his 
purposes, and in the stead of his own subjects gathering 
around him foreigners who abetted his crimes and en- 
couraged his obstinacy. Alienated from his people and 
quaking at heart with cowardice, he surrendered his 
realm to the papal legate and agreed to hold it as a fief 
of Rome. Then the burden became unbearable and re- 
volt broke out. With Stephen Langton, archbishop of 
Canterbury, at their head, the bishops and the barons 
united for the defence of national freedom and of national 
law. Success followed ; the country stood by them, 
and the king was left with only seven knights and a 
handful of men. " Name a time and place," said he, 
" and I will grant the rights and liberties demanded." — 



THE CENTURY OF SPLENDOR. 37 1 

" Let the day," was the reply, "be the fifteenth of June; 
the place, Runnymede." So in the u meadow of coun- 
sel " the armed league unfolded the scroll in which were 
contained the articles of peace ; these granted, John 
might reign. The luckless monarch had no alternative. 
He signed the deed — that which has won the name of 
" the Great Charter." Then the prelates and the earls 
appointed a council to see that the king kept his word. 
" Four-and-twenty overkings !" furiously exclaimed John 
when on his return to Windsor he flung himself in his 
impotent rage on the floor and gnawed the sticks and 
straws. Promptly did the pope excommunicate the pa- 
triots ; as soon as possible did John seek to make the 
charter of none effect. A fierce struggle plunged the 
country in woe, but the spirit of law and of freedom 
lived. Thirty times within two hundred years were the 
kings of England compelled to renew and to confirm 
that charter; in it the people saw the foundation and 
the security of just and honorable rights. It decreed 
that justice to any one should not be sold, refused or 
delayed ; that trial should be by jury and that punish- 
ment should accord with the offence ; and that except 
in time of war subjects should be free to leave the king- 
dom. It laid down the principles of constitutional gov- 
ernment and made it possible for the nation to dethrone 
an unjust ruler and to create for itself a king. And the 
first article of Magna Carta ordained against both pope 
and king that the Church of England, using the same 
title* which it bears to-day, shall be free and keep its 
laws entire and its liberties uninfringed. That charter 
was drawn up under the eye of an archbishop of Canter- 
bury, and was supported by the prelates, the clergy and 



3/2 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the baronage of England as an expression of their polit- 
ical aspirations ; it was the death-knell of tyranny, no 
matter what its form, ecclesiastical, national, regal or 
social ; it helped to the formation of parliaments, diets 
and councils ; and its spirit, so righteous and so magnif- 
icent, gathered strength with the ages until it has made 
the Anglo-Saxon peoples the foremost in the world's 
civilization and the rulers of the world's future. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Beginnings of Reformation. 

The Reformation was not the work of one generation 
or of one school of thought, nor did it concern only one 
phase of life. It was the outcome of ages, the inevita- 
ble evolution of principles, wide-stretching in its pur- 
pose and in its results affecting most things human. The 
climax was* reached in the sixteenth century, but for 
the previous two or three hundred years the forces had 
been gathering strength ; and, rather than being super- 
ficial or exclusive, it was religious, intellectual, political, 
moral and social, stirring the deepest depths of human- 
ity, severing time in twain and creating a new era. Such 
a movement was necessarily complex ; it was the work 
of friends and foes, of powers sometimes antagonistic 
and warring against each other, sometimes, perhaps 
unconsciously, striving together for the same end, and 
neither side, even when the struggle became definite, 
being absolutely either good or bad. Causes delight- 
ful and causes distressing intermingled and produced 
results sometimes of questionable value. Prejudice, 
therefore, must not be suffered to lead to exaggeration. 
The times of the brewing of the storm were worse than 
most times, but, like all times, not entirely evil. To pass 
from the thirteenth century into the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries is much like leaving meridian splen- 

373 



374 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

dor for midnight gloom. The brilliancy has vanished, 
and in place of a glory grand, exalted and heroic the age 
is largely distinguished by a debased selfishness and 
heartless cruelty. But the darkness was not unrelieved, 
nor was the degradation absolute; many a beautiful 
spirit and many a charming episode came in to brighten 
a period that some have thought unbearable. If there 
were little solar splendor, there was at least sidereal love- 
liness, and in place of the blinding flashes which rend 
the storm-cloud were the gentle play and the attractive 
coruscations of the Aurora. 

Nothing more surely betokened coming change than 
the Renascence. Europe was awaking out of her intel- 
lectual stupor. The touch of life came, as the daylight 
comes, from the East. Owing partly to the ravages of 
Goths and of Arabs elsewhere and partly to its unri- 
valled position, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
Constantinople was not only the capital of the Eastern 
Empire, but also the principal commercial city in the 
world and the busy hive of literature, art and science. 
The capture of the city in 1204 by the Latins dispersed 
the commerce, brought intercourse between Italians and 
Greeks and occasioned the revival of art in the thirteenth 
century. Then, in 1453, when the Turks destroyed the 
Empire and made sure their footing in Europe, the schol- 
ars of Constantinople were scattered and their famous 
schools broken up. They found a ready welcome in 
Western Europe. There, and especially at Florence, 
the new teachers made known the language and the 
literature of the ancient Homeric land, and "brought 
about a revival of letters not only in the country of 
Virgil and Csesar, but also in the realm of Csedmon 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 375 

and Alfred. With the dispersion synchronized the in- 
vention of printing and the increased use of linen paper, 
whereby the sacred and classical writings and the spec- 
ulations of the men of the Renascence were made cheap 
and scattered far and wide. This very effort to make 
knowledge popular and communication of thought easy, 
so anxiously fostered by scholars of influence, was itself 
fatal both to the long-continued intellectual exclusiveness 
and to the permanence of a scholasticism which had in 
it little besides monastic narrowness and the coldness of 
inexorable logic. Previous to the introduction of the 
press into England, in 1473, a copy of Wickliffe's New 
Testament cost the entire wages of a laborer for two years, 
and the whole Bible the same for fifteen years. Now it 
was possible at a comparatively low price to own the 
Scriptures, not only in the mother-tongue, but also in 
Greek and in Hebrew. 

The impetus thus given to Western Europe by these 
scattered teachers naturally affected the universities and 
forced them into greater prominence. Popular education 
was also furthered by the foundation, as in England, of 
free public schools. The cost of attending these centres 
of learning was not great, and to needy scholars help was 
afforded by the gifts and the bequests of charitable indi- 
viduals ; nor were students ashamed to work for their 
bread while they learned. It was evident that reading 
and writing were no more the prerogatives of clergy and 
of monks and unworthy the notice or the acquisition 
of men of gentle or of noble birth. The middle classes 
realized an interest in learning, and in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, as is illustrated by the Paston correspondence, even 
English country-people were able to write in their own 



3/6 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY, 

mother-tongue grammatical and readable letters. Not 
only nobles and professors, but also rural squires, wrote 
to one another about books and libraries. A few vol- 
umes found their way into the houses of farmers, and it 
has with some probability been claimed that in busy dis- 
tricts, such as Norfolkshire, the percentage of people in 
the latter part of the fifteenth century who knew the 
clerkly art was as great as it was ninety years since. 
Any way, men began to think for themselves, and the 
village-lad brought home from school or college new 
ideas, fresh ways of looking at things, and spread them 
among his old friends and neighbors. And certainly 
the university, with its democratic tendencies, its reck- 
less pursuit of knowledge, its recognition of merit and 
its moulding power, became directly antagonistic to 
the mediaeval conceptions both of the Church and of 
society. Of design there was none, but the drift was 
inevitable. The world would some day require a reason 
for its faith and question the justice of arbitrary social 
divisions. 

To this end had also gone the influence of the cru- 
sades : they did much to bring the rude regions of the 
West into contact with the cultured East. For, though 
unbelievers and worshippers of the False Prophet, the 
Saracens were foremost in the world's civilization. Their 
fanaticism led them frequently to imitate the cruel ex- 
cesses of their Christian opponents, but they had a gen- 
uine love of art, a considerable knowledge of science, 
an anxious care for the happier and more peaceful de- 
velopment of society, and, notwithstanding their bigotry, 
a delightful generosity and a noble charity. From them 
the crusader learned much besides the art of bearing 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION tf? 

defeat with equanimity. When he went back to his 
home in the towns or the villages toward the setting 
sun, he took many a story pregnant with thought as 
well as with wonder which caused some cogitation in the 
minds of his hearers. He spoke of the comforts and 
the cleanliness of the people of the East, and told of 
their houses, gardens, streets and shops. Possibly he 
showed some bit of rare workmanship or planted in the 
orchard a sprig of some choice flower or tree. He 
became an authority in his neighborhood, for travel 
expands the mind and imparts influence. He might 
even smile at the credulity of his friends and crack a 
pleasant joke over the parish priest or the Fathers of 
the abbey — perhaps assume a superior and supercilious 
air toward all things around which might offend, but 
which would also be sure to create a feeling of dissat- 
isfaction and of shame. Certainly he would know that 
all the graces of humanity were not confined to Chris- 
tendom, and that bravery, virtue, honor and fortitude 
were as common to swarthy Arabs as to the flowers of 
European chivalry. 

With the development of mental energies art also 
advanced. In England, for example, more roads were 
made, thus rendering intercourse easier and bringing 
secluded corners into communication with the great 
world. Trade grew and commerce made rapid strides ; 
the art of agriculture was encouraged ; better houses 
were built ; towns began to purify their streets and to 
confine the pigs in styes and the fowl to the back lanes ; 
the taste for clean linen extended from the abbey to the 
cottage, and people discovered more ways of making a 
living than by stealing their neighbors' cattle or corn or 



378 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

by the forages and the ravages of war. Now, too, 
architecture took its most glorious forms, passing from 
the Early English to the Decorated and hence to the 
Perpendicular styles. Never since those days has the 
art of building achieved such splendid triumphs ; where 
it has been original it has failed, and where, it has suc- 
ceeded it has been only by a close imitation of the old 
work. Possibly there are no more secrets to discover 
and no more laurels to win : the lofty, graceful arch of 
the forest avenue has been carried into the cathedral 
nave, and the enclosing firmament of heaven into the 
wide and mighty dome. It is not to be supposed that 
the sense of magnificence or the spirit of symbolism, 
any more than the revival of letters or the increased 
social comforts, was felt by all classes in the community. 
Some were for long untouched by learning or by art, 
but the tide-movement was in the ocean, rushing in 
swift force here and there and certain not to rest until 
every part of the vast waters responded and every 
wavelet bended to the flow. 

Notwithstanding these better and brighter prospects, 
the political and social life of England for most of this 
period was extremely unhappy. Rebellion and civil war 
involved the country in much misery. The feud be- 
tween the classes had long been smouldering, kept 
down by foreign wars and by parliamentary measures, 
but, stirred by songs in coarse plain language and tell- 
ing rhyme and fed by the continuance of unrelieved 
oppression and cruel injustice, the storm at last burst 
out. In the revolt of the peasants, though the rising 
was suppressed with an iron hand, the death-blow was 
struck at the old system of villeinage. The year 138 1 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 379 

revealed the power of the common people ; the year 
1399 showed the strength of the Parliament in deposing 
one king and in electing another. Then came the long 
struggle between Yorkist and Lancastrian. Deep and 
swift ran the river of blood ; before the Red and White 
Roses were united by Henry of Richmond the baronage 
of England was almost extirpated and a hundred thou- 
sand men were slain. In 1485, when the crown was 
placed upon the brow of the first of the Tudors, the 
new king beheld a realm in ruins. Hamlets and villages 
had disappeared ; commerce was destroyed ; confidence, 
industry and virtue were overthrown ; and men were 
ready for despotism or death, so that they might have 
peace. For years the law had been powerless to restrain 
crime. The roads swarmed with robbers ; houses were 
burnt and men and women kidnapped by bands of 
marauders who wandered unrestrained through the 
country. Once in a while came a short breathing-time. 
Hope dawned with the chivalric Henry V., and again 
with the absolute Edward IV. But the tempest renewed 
itself fiercer than ever. 

Other afflictions were also added. Again and again 
came famine — so great that at times even the wealthy 
were brought to dire distress. Had it not been for the 
custom of preserving food for many months' consump- 
tion, the mass of the people must have perished. Com- 
plaints are common of stormy seasons, floods, exorbitant 
taxation, the inability of the farmers to buy seed, and, in 
some parts, of the ravages of rabbits. In the famine of 
13 1 5 the people were reduced to such straits as to 
devour beasts of burden, domestic pets and vermin. 
Pestilence also became virulent. The first appearance 



380 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

of the Black Death was in 1349, and in two years' time 
it swept off nearly one-half the inhabitants of the land. 
By it whole villages were depopulated ; harvests rotted 
on the ground for want of reapers and farms went to 
ruin for want of laborers ; the clergy were so reduced 
that many parishes were entirely without ministrations ; 
in some monasteries every member died, and it seemed as 
if all things were at an end. Twenty years later the Black 
Death returned, again in 1368, and twice again before 
the close of the century. Murrain also visited the cattle, 
and in the wholesale destruction of the flocks the coun- 
try lost its staple and its principal source of revenue. 
In the next century the plague broke out some twenty 
times. What wonder if the remnant, wearied with so 
many and so grievous evils, became despondent and 
desperate ? It is to the glory of the first two Tudor 
sovereigns that by their energy, will and wisdom the 
country was delivered from its pitiful condition and 
made once more happy and prosperous. 

But even tribulation, working with thinking and earn- 
est men, has a developing, educating influence. It at 
least created a seriousness of deportment. Much im- 
morality, indeed, abounded : the times were not virtuous, 
and, as we shall see later, the classes and the orders 
which should have wrought for righteousness were large- 
ly and deeply touched with evil. Still, the instances of 
sterling piety are not uncommon. It is delightful to 
call to mind the scene at the gates of the abbey of 
Tewkesbury, May 4, 1474. The Yorkists would have 
continued their butchery of the defeated Lancastrians 
within the sacred precincts, but the abbot came forth 
and stood between the fugitives and the pursuers, like 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 38 1 

Aaron between the dead and the living, and forbade 
the shedding of further blood. His commands were 
obeyed. In the same abbey, in 1438, was buried Isa- 
bella, countess of Warwick; when, in 1875, her grave 
was opened, on the side of the slab toward her "face, as 
though to meet her gaze on the awakening-day, was 
found the simple prayer, " Mercy, Lord Jesus !" Nor 
upon tombs were such pious ejaculations as the follow- 
ing uncommon : Jcsus y amor metis, vita mea y justorum 
Icetitia ("Jesus, my love, my life, joy of the just"); 
and Ne elongeris a me, Dens meus (" Be not far from 
me, O my God "). Even if formal, they witness to a 
recognition of sacred things. 

Perhaps the story of John Paston's funeral may illus- 
trate the piety, extravagance and weakness of the age. 
He was a Norfolkshireman, a lawyer, shrewd, acquis- 
itive, humorless and ambitious. Partly by inheritance 
and marriage and partly by the energy of his business 
habits and thorough knowledge of the world he had 
obtained considerable property and an honorable rank 
among the local gentry. His home was in a village 
bearing the same name as himself, in a remote corner 
of the county, about twenty miles to the north of Nor- 
wich and not far from the low sandy shore of the North 
Sea. A mile from Paston was Bromholm Priory, a small 
Cluniac house, but in fame second only to Walsingham, 
renowned both for its discipline and for its rood made 
out of the wood of the true cross. The proximity of 
the two places gave the Paston family and the monks a 
lively interest in each other ; nor was the interest other 
than honest and friendly. John Paston attended the 
priory services and replenished the priory coffers; the 



382 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

brethren looked upon him as their patron and supported 
him in all his troubles. When he died, the funeral rites 
were observed, and the body was deposited within their 
walls. The end came in London, May 21, 1466, and it 
was determined to give to his funeral that magnificence 
which his wealth and position justified, but which during 
his life he seems to have despised. A number of retain- 
ers, a priest, some servants and twelve poor men bearing 
torches accompanied the corpse from London to the 
distant country-place. The procession was a memor- 
able one. Churches and abbeys on the way vied with 
one another in their offering of respect. The notes of 
one tolling bell no sooner ceased than the sad burden 
was taken up by another, while at each resting-place 
solemn masses were offered for the repose of the soul 
of the departed. When Norwich was reached, the ful- 
ness of honor was shown. The Pastons had been lib- 
eral patrons to the churches there ; many of the clergy 
had experienced their hospitality, and once when John 
was sick his mother gave to Walsingham his weight in 
an image of wax, and to each of the houses of friars in 
the city a noble. To St. Peter's church, the advowson 
of which belonged to the family, the body, placed in a 
sumptuous hearse and followed by a long procession, 
was taken. Grand services were then held. The four 
orders of friars were there, and to sing the solemn dirge 
thirty-nine children in surplices, twenty-six clerks and 
thirty-eight priests. Alms were given lavishly; and 
when all was over, gifts and fees were made with a 
liberal hand. Among the expenses were wine for the 
singers, wax for the candles and broadcloth for the 
guests. 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 383 

Two days later the bearers of the dead beheld the 
walls of Bromholm. Within the priory church, hung 
with black drapery and dimly lighted with tapers, the 
body rested from its long journey. Through the long 
night and in silence the brethren watched beside the 
bier; then, ere the first sun-rays touched the painted 
windows, the mass was sung and prayers were said that 
he who now lay before the sanctuary might be vouchsafed 
a speedy entrance into Paradise. And when came the 
time for interment, solemnity and grandeur appeared 
to surpass themselves. Parsons, monks and friars were 
there in flocks, friends and acquaintances thronged from 
far and near, and by the bier were many surpliced priests 
and singers. To the requiem, within the assembled mul- 
titude, without the breaking waves upon the beach, made 
response. The church was lighted with flaming torches, 
weird and lurid ; indeed, the smoke grew so dense that 
panes of glass had to be taken out of the windows. 
Thus amid pomp and ceremony the funeral rites ended, 
and soon the deep-tolling bell proclaimed that the dead 
man was lying in his grave. 

This done, the company went to dinner in the great 
hall. Provisions for three or four days had been gath- 
ered in enormous quantities ; the guests must have been 
numbered by hundreds. Then came the gifts, doles and 
fees, everybody receiving something substantial by which 
to remember the deceased. A man was engaged to shoe 
the horses, and another to shave the monks. Lodgings 
were provided for all. Finally, respect, sympathy and 
feasting exhausted, the visitors went their ways ; the 
family retired to Paston, and the brethren were left to 
their old dreamy life. But the heavy expenses so crip- 



384 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

pled the estate that many a year passed before the tomb 
was finished. A torn and rotten cloth for long lay over the 
grave, and as late as 1475 people spoke of the great shame 
that no stone had been erected. Among the first prio- 
ries dissolved by Henry VIII. was Bromholm ; only a few 
walls now remain. The breaking waves chant the same 
song as of old, but the masses and the monks have gone, 
the candles and the incense burn no more, and amid the 
dead grandeur, in quiet and peace, rests all that is left 
of John Paston. 

There is little doubt that this page from the history 
of an ordinary well-to-do family fairly expresses the 
spirit of the times. The country was poor, but the love 
of ostentation and of pomp led to a ruinous extrava- 
gance. To meet the cost of such a funeral as that just 
described, the friends would have to suffer much priva- 
tion and tenants would have to be pressed to the utmost 
farthing. Yet in its folly the age demanded such sacri- 
fices. Famine, pestilence and war for the living; for the 
dead a parade and a waste both useless and satirical ! 
And yet, again, that very lavishness indicated an affec- 
tion for the deceased and a faith in the efficacy of ser- 
vices for his soul's health. It was not wholly created by 
the goadings of rivalry; only, in an age of awakening 
thought and of oppressive affliction, the question of 
utility was sure to arise and the weariness certain to 
make itself felt. 

England was only a microcosm of Europe ; the Con- 
tinent was shrouded in the like gloom. Kings made 
war and peoples rebelled ; plague and famine were com- 
mon, and for long it seemed as if learning and arts had 
revived only to make the way easy for man to rid the 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 385 

world of its civilization and then to put an end to him- 
self. The papacy itself became its own destroyer. For 
sixty years the popes reigned at Avignon ; then, from 
1378 to 1447, schism gave Christendom at the same 
time two, and sometimes three, popes; and in John 
XXIII. and Alexander VI. appeared the monstrosity 
of wickedness. 

But grace and virtue wrought together for better 
things. Notwithstanding the evils, here and there 
noble spirits were working and preparing the way for 
reformation. 

Thomas a Kempis was born of poor, hardworking 
parents at Kempen, forty miles north of Cologne, in 
1379. He and his elder brother were sent to school 
at Deventer, where the influence of the scholarly and 
mystical Gerhard Groot was very great. Here was a 
society of devout men, organized by Groot and called 
" The Brethren of the Common Life." They, in their 
reaction from scholasticism, with such men as Bernard 
of Clairvaux, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Henry 
Eckhart and John Ruysbroeck, held that the great end 
to be desired and pursued was oneness with God, and 
that not so much through the Church, sacraments or 
Christian fellowship as by introspection, meditation and 
intuition. Nor was this " oneness with God " merely 
congeniality with God or delight and assurance in his 
attributes, but rather a state in which all thought and 
activity is suspended and the soul passes out of itself — 
an ecstasy — and is lost in God. Perfect rest was thereby 
attained, but religion became a matter of feeling, and 
therefore inexplicable. The result was twofold — many 
great and noble souls who became the precursors of a 

25 



386 READINGS IN CHURCH HIS TOR Y. 

genuine reformation, and many weak and ruined minds 
which, casting aside all external authority and depend- 
ing only upon individual revelations, fell into grievous 
excesses. But so far, at Deventer, only the good was 
seen, and the charm of that quiet, holy life so affected 
Kempis that in time he became a member of the brother- 
hood. His brother gained the office of prior in the Au- 
gustinian convent of Mount St. Agnes near Zwolle, in 
Holland. The Austin friars not only were in doctrine 
rivals of the Dominicans, but also were suspected of re- 
forming tendencies. They held much of the mysticism 
of the Brethren of the Common Life, lived singularly 
pious and exact lives, and, though not outwardly in 
nonconformity with ecclesiastical Christendom, were 
more prone to depend upon the Scriptures than upon 
the Church and to care more for subjective than for 
objective religion. To his brother's house Thomas 
went in the year 1399. Eight years later he took the 
vows of the brotherhood; in 141 3 he was ordained 
priest, and in 1425 he became sub-prior. The sweet- 
ness and the purity of his character, his calm faith and 
his unostentatious piety, made him beloved by all. He 
was quiet, happy and studious, little in stature, fresh- 
colored, with soft-brown eyes and seemingly unaffected 
by the conflicts of his age. So lacking in curiosity 
was he that he avoided the throng of gossippers who 
in the evening brought to the gates of the convent the 
news of the outside world. His sermons were persua- 
sive and distinguished by an endearing spirituality. He 
wrote some hymns, and was also the author or editor of 
many tracts on the monastic life. His tranquil and un- 
eventful career came to an end in 1471, when his years 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 387 

numbered ninety-one, and, had it not been for the Imita- 
tio Ckristi, his name would long since have perished. 

Whether the author of that wonderful book or not, it 
has given Kempis renown and immortality. The work 
has been ascribed to John Gerson, in 1392 doctor of the 
Sorbonne and chancellor of the University of Paris, an 
able preacher against the sins of the times, by some re- 
garded as a Reformer and by others as a trimmer. He 
was a mystic and once taught a school of boys and girls 
in Lyons. The only fee he exacted of his pupils was 
their promise daily to pray, " Lord, have mercy on thy 
poor servant Gerson." Having both urged the pope to 
inaugurate a reformation of manners and assisted in the 
condemnation of John Huss and of Jerome of Prague, 
in 1429 he died. Few, however, now suppose him to 
have written the Imitation : that glory is generally as- 
cribed to the Austin friar. It certainly expresses a life 
such as Thomas a Kempis lived and accords with the 
teachings of the fraternity to which he belonged. Its 
catholicity is shown in the favor which it has received 
from all kinds of Christians ; its vitality, in its contin- 
ued and increasing popularity. The conception of the 
Church set forth is the spiritual ideal held by such as 
Anselm and Bernard, and not that of a political king- 
dom, as taught by St. Augustine and Hildebrand. No- 
where else appears in so clear a light the heart-religion 
of Latin Christianity — its noble and wonderful spiritual- 
ity, freed from the accretions of puerility, tradition and 
superstition. There are high biblical and extreme sac- 
ramental tendencies, both, however, tempered with a 
devout, joyful exaltation of Christ. The apparent sel- 
fishness with which it has been charged is a conse- 



338 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

quence of its mysticism — a weakness, one may say, of 
a system which sought to purify more the individual 
soul than the world outside. The absence of asceticism 
is remarkable. The imitation suggested is not that of 
suffering, directing attention to Christ's Passion and 
therefore mortifying the body, but that of concentrat- 
ing the attention upon the Incarnation, the grace and 
charm of the Lord Jesus, and by thought being lifted 
up into his life. " Evangelical poverty " is not urged : 
its failure was too evident ; nor were legends recom- 
mended or curious study approved. Such a work, full 
of golden lines, brilliant with gems of holiest thought, 
pure as the light which falls upon the absorbed and 
worshipping soul and rich in encouragement, consola- 
tion and guidance, must have done much in preparing 
the way for better days. On its pages fall the roseate 
sunbeams of morning — the morning both of the Ref- 
ormation and of the Day of Righteousness. 

The same spirit which so kindly appears in this book 
flashes out in meteoric splendor in Girolamo Savonarola. 
He was born at Ferrara in 1452, and was early touched 
with a consciousness of the evil of the times. " I could 
not endure," he says, " the enormous wickedness of the 
blinded people of Italy ; and the more so because I saw 
everywhere virtue despised and vice honored. A greater 
sorrow I could not have in this world." In 1475 he en- 
tered the Dominican convent at Bologna. As he pre- 
pared for the work of a preacher his distress and his zeal 
grew more intense. When the day came for him to face 
the people, his heart was filled to bursting with Elijah- 
like indignation and with Paul-like enthusiasm. At first 
few cared to hear him : his accent was harsh and his 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 389 

periods were ill-formed; but in time even Florence was 
moved by the startling eloquence and the fierce denun- 
ciations of a man whose soul was on fire. The people 
grew pale as he pointed out to them the woe of sin. He 
spared none — not even the pope. When excommuni- 
cated by His Holiness, he retorted and excommunicated 
him. Patriotic and saintly, fearless and able, Florence 
began to love him. For a while his bidding was done ; 
there was the promise of better things. Then, as sud- 
denly as he had burst upon the scene, the end came. 
His enemies strengthened themselves ; they would none 
of his reforms. In 1498, forsaken by the multitudes 
who had once hanged upon his lips, he was seized, 
strangled and burnt in the public square of Florence, 
and his ashes were thrown into the Arno. Before his 
death he was degraded from his priestly office and the 
bishop declared him separated from the Church, mil- 
itant and triumphant. Savonarola calmly replied, " From 
the Church militant — yes; but from the Church trium- 
phant — no : that is not yours to do." 

Scarcely less splendid was John Huss. Born of well- 
to-do but humble parentage at Hussinecz, in Bohemia, 
about the year 1 369, he was educated at Prague, and 
proceeded to various degrees and ranks until in 1402 he 
was made rector of the university. In 1 391 a chapel 
had been built and endowed by some citizens of Prague 
for the purpose of supplying the people with good plain 
preaching in their common tongue; this chapel in 1402 
was placed in the care of Huss. Immediate contact 
with the spiritual and the intellectual wants of the masses 
and earnest and independent study of the sacred Scrip- 
tures opened his mind to the influence of John Wick- 



390 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

lifife's writings. His growing sympathy with the new 
school of thought did not for some time bring him into 
antagonism with the authorities of the Church ; even in 
1405, when he bitterly declaimed against the abuses of 
the clergy, warning people of forged miracles and eccle- 
siastical greed and urging them to seek Christ not in 
signs and wonders, but in his enduring word, he had 
the full sanction of his superior. But his boldness and 
his knowledge waxed greater; he drew nearer to the 
English Reformer, and uttered inflammatory things, 
against the Church herself. In 1409 the pope forbade 
him preaching ; and when the city of Prague supported 
him in his defiant disregard of the papal edict, the place 
was laid under an interdict. The struggle thus begun 
went on, till in 141 3 was held the Council of Constance. 
To this council John Huss was summoned, and, having 
obtained a pledge of safety from the emperor Sigismund, 
he ventured into the midst of his angry opponents. He 
was arrested within three weeks of his arrival, November 
28, and an end would soon have been reached had not 
the council the greater work before it of trying and de- 
posing the notoriously wicked John XXIII. Under 
the new pope an examination was held, certain charges 
were made showing the radical and dangerous opinions 
of Huss and his sympathy with Wickliffe, whose teach- 
ings had already been condemned, and at last, July 6, 
141 5, he was sentenced to death. In vain did the " pale 
thin man in mean attire" remind his judges of the pro- 
tection of the imperial safe-conduct ; Sigismund blushed 
deeply and said nothing. The degradation followed. 
" We commit thy body to the secular arm/' said a 
bishop, " and thy soul to the devil." — " And I," replied 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 39 1 

Huss, "commit it to my most merciful Lord, Jesus 
Christ." When bound to the stake, he was urged to 
recant, but he exclaimed, " God is my witness that I 
have never taught or preached that which false witnesses 
have testified against me. He knows that the great ob- 
ject of all my preaching and writing was to convert men 
from sin. In the truth of that gospel which hitherto I 
have written, taught and preached I now joyfully die." 
Seeing a peasant carrying a fagot to add to his funeral- 
pile, he said with a smile, in words borrowed from St. 
Jerome, "Oh, holy simplicity !" " Huss " is Bohemian 
for " goose ;" hence the martyr is said to have prophe- 
sied that in place of one goose tame and weak of wing 
God would before long send falcons and eagles. In the 
stifling smoke and the kindling flame his spirit passed 
away — his last words, " Kyrie Eleison." When all was 
over, the smouldering ashes, the scorched remnants of 
his clothes, and even the soil on which he had been 
burned, were carefully gathered and thrown into the 
Rhine. 

Huss was noted for purity of life, pleasing manner 
and strong convictions. His views were pronounced, 
but neither so decided as Wickliffe's nor so radical as 
Luther's. In sickness and poverty he lived ; in courage, 
fortitude and hope he died ; and he is remembered as 
one of the bravest martyrs and the most intrepid re- 
formers in the band of heroes who have led the world on 
to light and to freedom. 

The friend of Huss was the enthusiastic and head- 
strong Jerome of Prague, born somewhere between 1360 
and 1370 in the city whence he derives his surname. He 
early imbibed the opinions of Huss and of WicklifTe 



392 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

and preached the new doctrines with vigor, but he was 
weak and uncertain, and his zeal expended its force in 
bursts of furious, torrent-like vehemence. When the 
Council of Constance met, he was warned not to venture 
thither. He went, fled, was brought back, recanted, 
and was condemned to die. Then, before he was ex- 
ecuted, he solemnly revoked his recantation. " Of all 
the sins," said he to the council, " that I have committed 
since my youth, none weigh so heavily on my mind and 
cause me such keen remorse as that which I committed 
in this evil place when I approved of the iniquitous 
sentence given against Wickliffe and against the holy 
martyr John Huss, my master and friend." On May 
30, 14 1 6, he was taken to death. His heroic, ardent 
soul seemed to have lost all timidity. " Light the fire !" 
he cried to the executioner. "Had I the least fear, I 
should not be standing in this place." His ashes also 
were thrown into the Rhine ; his name has an honorable, 
if not an exalted, position in the roll of Reformers. 

The death of these two Bohemian martyrs lighted 
up the long and furious war known as " the Hussite." 
His countrymen were indignant when they heard of 
the treatment John Huss had received at Constance. A 
diet was held at Prague, and a document in which were 
warmly upheld the personal character of the Reformer 
and the freedom of Bohemia and Moravia from heresy 
was formulated and signed by four hundred and fifty- 
two magnates. In 1420 war broke out between the 
friends and the opponents of this measure, continuing 
for eleven years. The Hussites themselves divided into 
two sects — the Calixtines, who insisted upon receiving 
holy communion under both species, regarding the chalice 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 393 

as a sign of the equality of all, and who were willing 
to remain in connection with Rome ; and the Taborites, 
who refused all reconciliation and fought till their cause 
was utterly lost. In both divisions were some quiet 
spirits who wished to heal the differences and to remain 
as brethren. In 1457 these formed a community at 
Kunewald, near Senftenberg, and out of this commu- 
nity grew the society of Moravians, or Bohemian Breth- 
ren — the honored and beloved Unitas Fratrum. From 
the Waldenses of Austria one of their number received 
episcopal consecration. Their success as missionaries 
and as the inheritors and guardians of a pure faith has 
given them the reverence and the affection of Christen- 
dom; and so long as the world admires simplicity, 
devotion, courage and fortitude, so long will these 
spiritual descendants of John Huss be regarded with 
delight. 

Different in genius and in work, but touched with the 
same spirit, was William Langley, or Langland, the 
author of Piers the Plowman. He was born about 1332, 
probably at Cleobury Mortimer, in Worcestershire, and 
seems to have been brought up amid much poverty. 
His livelihood was made by singing psalms for the good 
of men's souls ; hence the gloom which appears ever to 
rest upon him. He took minor orders, but never rose 
in the Church. In 1362 he wrote the famous poem by 
which he has been remembered. Here, in vivid — possi- 
bly in exaggerated — form are displayed the sins and the 
woes of the age, not as seen by the genial and courtly 
Chaucer, but by a rude, homely, common-sense peasant. 
The poet has nothing to do with theological errors : his 
powers are given to the unveiling of the moral corrup- 



394 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

tion of England. A keen insight into motives and 
deeds, a withering satire, sharp and unsparing irony, 
plain, blunt speech, and, withal, a love of nature and a 
gentle appreciation of religion and manhood, are his 
weapons. The friars come in for his fiercest, most 
furnace-like wrath. He hurls against them the dead- 
liest invectives genius and indignation can devise. Their 
idleness, dissoluteness, covetousness, hypocrisy, hardness 
of heart, pitilessness to the poor, extravagance and as- 
sumptions excite his most terrible scorn and reproach. 
In his extreme earnestness he shows the sad condition 
of the peasant and neglected classes, the hunger, injust- 
ice and oppression they suffer, and the hopelessness of 
their life. Among the causes of this and kindred evils 
he places the wealth of the clergy. The gift of Con- 
stantine was the doom of true religion : the pope lives 
but to levy the wealth of the world that he may slay 
mankind. He traces out the effects of sin in all their 
ghastliness and shame, and with scarcely less vigor 
he displays political evils. The sternness of the poem 
is here and there relieved with gentle touches — the 
burnished gold and the flowing crimson on the edge of 
black evening-clouds. Naught can be sweeter than the 
scene on the May morning amid the Malvern Hills 
when the poet rested himself by the merrily-sounding 
waters of a bourne ; naught can be more delightful than 
the paean with which is announced the final triumph of 
light over darkness, of life over death and of Christ 
over Satan ; but, these passages apart, the work gives a 
fearful picture of the times. The poet sees plainly the 
need ; woe and ruin are coming on toward the defence- 
less society as flow the storm-urged waves of a rising 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 395 

tide on a low sand-shore. Without reformation there 
is no hope. The night is dark, starless, tempestuous ; 
unless the morning break apace, the end must be the 
crash and the crush of death. A prophet such as 
William Langley does not speak in vain. His message 
has no charm such as that in the pleasant lines of the 
Canterbury Tales, no tender fancies over which the 
imagination loves to linger ; it is fraught with arrows 
of conviction and utters things men care least to hear. 
This writer died about 1400, but his work must have 
done much toward reformation. 

The year after William Langley's death witnessed the 
first shedding of English martyr-blood. Heretics had 
been on the Continent consigned to the flames for the 
past two hundred years, but not till 1401 did England 
stain her statute-book with a law of persecution. Then 
William Sawtrey, a parish priest of St. Osith's, in Lon- 
don, was accused of holding erroneous doctrines. He 
had maintained that Christians ought to worship, not 
the cross, but Him who died thereon ; that the divine 
law allowed not the worship either of men or of angels ; 
that a man had better distribute the expense of his 
journey to the poor at home than go on a pilgrimage ; 
and that a priest was more bound to preach to the peo- 
ple than to say the hours of prayer. Upon examination 
he also denied transubstantiation. Some time before 
this he had recanted, but as soon as conscience got the 
better of his fear he set forth his opinions more vigor- 
ously than ever. The convocation pronounced him a 
relapsed heretic, degraded him and handed him over to 
the secular power. Others there were in England who 
held the same views, but it was judged expedient to 



396 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

make an example; and on the twenty-sixth day of 
February, 1 40 1, William Sawtrey perished in the flames 
at Smithfield. He was not great, though probably of 
considerable influence in his day ; but the proto-martyr 
in the Anglican struggle toward righteousness is not 
without glory. 

No body of men is wholly bad, and, while careless 
and worldly prelates were not uncommon, there were 
many bishops whose lives exemplified the nobler and the 
truer spirit. Such a one was John Carpenter, bishop of 
Worcester from 1443 to 1476. He was not only char- 
itable and kind, but also practical, energetic and wise. 
His care extended to the repairing both of churches 
and of highways — roadmaking then being esteemed an 
act of mercy. In his diocese discipline was adminis- 
tered firmly and judiciously and the poor were particu- 
larly looked after, but one of the bishop's chief anxieties 
was to secure an eloquent, an earnest and a learned clergy. 
At his visitations he appointed an able preacher before 
the assembled priests to " expound the word of God." 
He gave a license to suitable persons "to preach and 
set forth the word of God anywhere within the diocese." 
Under his authority several of the smaller monasteries 
of his jurisdiction were dissolved and their revenues and 
members added to larger establishments. There is no 
indication that he sympathized with other than the pop- 
ular theological and ecclesiastical theories, but his dili- 
gence, sternness of purpose, kindness of heart, honest 
and straightforward life, distinguish him as one worthy 
of praise and as a preparer of the way for better things, 
Others like him adorned the episcopate, and, but for 
such as these — men whose righteous spirits were grieved 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 2)97 

at the evils around them — the times would have been 
utterly without hope. 

But the most resplendent figure — grander than all 
these — was John WicklifTe. He was as a star set in the 
dark sky, whose radiance both cheers the gloom and 
suggests the coming of the splendor of strength. From 
him the religious life of England and largely that of 
Western Christendom received their first awakening- 
He was born about the year 1324 in the neighborhood 
of Richmond, in Yorkshire, and at Oxford became suc- 
cessively a student, the master of Baliol and the lec- 
turer in divinity. His learning gained for him the title 
of the "Evangelic Doctor/' It was in 1366, when he 
assumed the office of lecturer and became " peculiaris 
regis clericus," that he first appeared as a Reformer by 
advocating, on the ground of the independence of Eng- 
land, the non-payment of certain arrears of the tribute 
which King John had bound himself and his successors 
to give to the Roman see, and which Pope Urban V. had 
demanded. He even maintained that property given to 
the clergy may rightfully be taken away, and denounced 
the employment of ecclesiastics in secular affairs. In 
this he obtained the support of John of Gaunt, though 
the motive of that nobleman was no higher than to hu- 
miliate a conspicuous leader in the opposite political 
party — the wealthy and talented William of Wykeham, 
bishop of Winchester and founder of two colleges. Thus 
encouraged, WicklifTe went on to expose what he con- 
sidered the pride, pomp and luxury of the prelates and 
the ignorance and neglect of preaching in the clergy. 
He condemned their immunity from secular jurisdiction, 
and affirmed the pope — " that proud worldly priest of 



39** READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Rome " — to be the Antichrist and the " most cursed 
of clippers and purse-carvers." 

The bitter outburst against the papal usurpations 
expressed the feeling not of Wickliffe only, but as well 
of most of his countrymen. Men could not tamely 
accept the assumptions of an Italian pontiff to depose 
kings, to set aside acts of Parliament and to reverse the 
decisions of the national courts. The burden became 
next to unbearable when the claim extended to an appel- 
late jurisdiction, to the appointment to vacant bishoprics 
and parishes and to enormous tribute. The times were 
bad, but the pope's exactions were merciless. What the 
hail left, the locust destroyed ; and never were Egyptian 
locusts like unto those which came from the Eternal 
City. First-fruits, annates, Peter's pence, fees for indul- 
gences and dispensations, gifts and taxed tribute, were 
among the means used to drain the wealth of the Eng- 
lish people into the papal coffers. " In truth," said Inno- 
cent IV., more facetiously than wisely, " England is our 
pleasant garden — a well-spring that cannot be exhausted, 
a land of rich abundance ; and where much is, much 
may be taken." The difficulty of opposition was in- 
creased by the fact that against the will of both king 
and people the pope filled dignities and benefices with 
men who would do his bidding. The Church of Eng- 
land was crowded with Italian and other foreign prelates 
and priests, ecclesiastics utterly out of touch with her tra- 
ditions, and, corrupt themselves, tainting all with whom 
they came in contact. They upheld the extremest pre- 
tensions of the papacy and withstood every effort toward 
a righteous change. The protest of Wickliffe is the pro- 
test of an English clergyman against so grievous a wrong 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 399 

— more political at first, perhaps, than spiritual, but nev- 
theless an honest, patriotic and indignant protest. 

The condition of the clergy could not but arouse the 
spirit of a man such as Wickliffe. The prelates were 
very rich ; the common clergy were very poor. The 
parishes were, indeed, robbed right and left to support 
the cathedrals and the monasteries. In crenellated pal- 
aces, with large numbers of chaplains, servitors and 
retainers, dwelt the bishops ; in comfortable and delight- 
ful abbeys lived the monks. The former were more 
statesmen than ecclesiastics, more secular than spiritual ; 
the latter were easy-going country-gentlemen respect- 
ably religious, kind and indulgent to their tenants, liberal 
to the poor and oblivious to all things in the world ex- 
cept their own interests. They were the enemies of the 
parish clergy, who were too impoverished to be either 
learned, respectable or efficient. Coming, as a rule, of 
a low origin, their very needs driving them to do things 
they would not perhaps otherwise have done, opposed 
by powerful corporations, the secular priests were among 
the most unfortunate of men. So. mercilessly were their 
parishes fleeced by the superior clergy that not unfre- 
quently the vicar was forced to beg his bread. The 
plunder was universal and wholesale ; not uncommonly 
nine-tenths of the parochial revenue went to support the 
leech-drawing pomp of dignitaries who never did aught 
to justify their existence. That ignorance prevailed is 
not surprising : bishops had to ordain men, not because 
of their fitness, but because they were willing to serve 
in the midst of unmitigated poverty. Hence we hear 
of clergy who did not know either Scripture or Liturgy, 
who could not even read, and whose chief accomplish- 



400 READINGS IN CHURCH HIS TOR Y. 

ment seems to have been ale-drinking and driving geese 
to pasture. A chaplain was asked by the dean of Salis- 
bury to construe the opening-line of the canon of the 
Mass, " Te igitur clementissime Pater rogamus," but he 
could tell neither in what case " Te " was nor by what 
word in the sentence it was governed. When urged to 
look more closely at the word, he suggested that " Te " 
was governed by " Pater," because the " Father governs 
all things " ! He could not tell the case, or even the 
meaning, of " clementissime," and finally protested 
against being examined in such things. This instance 
is not unique : the standard of knowledge among the 
parochial clergy was generally very low. 

Of course there were exceptions, and Wickliffe readily 
recognized such. Chaucer's well-known description of 
a poor parson rises up like a bright column of light out 
of the black gloom. There was one who taught the 
gospel truly and faithfully, one who would rather lose 
his tithes than oppress any who could not pay them — a 
holy and virtuous man, a shepherd, and no mercenary, 
a true friend who, though his parish was wide and the 
houses were far asunder, cared neither for storm nor for 
rain, but in sickness and in danger travelled with staff 
in hand and visited the needy one, were he great or 
small. Even if among the thousands of parish clergy 
in England there were none better than he, there were 
doubtless many who for earnestness and godliness ap- 
proached very nearly that perfect pattern. God's grace 
is never wholly weakened. 

But clerical poverty and clerical ignorance were not 
the worst evils that aroused Wickliffe's indignation. 
The wealthy clergy, free from the fear of episcopal visi- 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 401 

tation or reprimand, gave themselves up to that which 
best pleased them. They became largely non-residents 
— " strawberries," as Latimer afterward called them — 
visiting their cures but once a year. These spent their 
time in London or in the gay houses of lords and ladies, 
sometimes holding positions as stewards and leaving 
their people unshriven, unprayed for and untaught. Not 
even Lent brought them home. In their dress, in open 
defiance of the canons of the Church, they imitated the 
extravagances of the period, and with their richly-orna- 
mented gowns of scarlet and green glittering with gold, 
their broad bucklers, long swords and gay baldrics, were 
not to be known from the laity. Others who chanced 
to remain at home were too often a scandal and a dis- 
grace. They showed little interest in the things of the 
altar. The sports and the games of the village green 
and the customs and the dangers of the chase were 
better known than breviary or canons. The coarse oath 
and the lewd jest too often fell from lips consecrated to 
utter holy things, and drunkenness, cruelty and licen- 
tiousness excited the astonishment even of the simple 
and immoral villagers. 

As the good side of the episcopate is seen in such 
men as Peckham and Bradwardine of Canterbury, Wil- 
liam of Wykeham and Carpenter of Worcester, so is the 
bad side exhibited in a prelate such as Henry Burgh- 
esh of Lincoln. He died in 1340 — a man noble in 
birth, rich, and of power at the court of Edward III., 
once chancellor and twice treasurer of England and for 
some time " principal adviser of the king in foreign 
affairs" — so mighty, indeed, that in his twenty-ninth year 
he was nominated to the see consecrated in its founda- 

26 



402 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

tion by the pure and lofty Remigius, and by virtue of 
that office not only baptized the Black Prince, but also 
with a lively interest protected the rights of the univer- 
sity within his diocese. He was not extremely wicked, 
and is not, therefore, an extravagant illustration ; but he 
was of an arbitrary and oppressive disposition, overbear- 
ing toward the poor, exacting in his privileges and de- 
termined to have his own way. Perhaps in his avarice 
and his contempt for the rights of others he did after the 
manner of the clergy described fifty years later in the 
curious Complaint of the Ploughman, who insisted upon 
the utmost farthing of their dues : 

"For the tithing of a ducke, 
Or of an apple or an aie, 
They make men swere upon a boke; 
Thus they foulen Christes faie." 

At any rate, as a mighty hunter before the Lord, Henry, 
prince of the Church from the broad Humber to the 
winding Thames, behaved with great cruelty toward the 
people at Tynghurst, in Buckinghamshire. To make 
larger his park there, he enclosed a considerable portion 
of the common and deprived a number of poor bodies 
of both their tenements and the land from which they 
had obtained food for their families and herbage for 
their cattle. The needy were driven away that he might 
hunt the antlered deer. Such brutality bruised the souls 
of men. They could not love nor obey bishops who 
cared more for self than for the wearied flock of Christ. 
Nor did prelates addicted to the chase and to the whole- 
sale gratification of their own pleasures exercise either 
authority or influence in the Church. The Lord's heri- 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 403 

tage lay waste, and none sought to repair the breaches. 
But legend had its revenge on Henry Burghesh. His 
end was not like that of the martyr of Canterbury. The 
tapers placed around his body when put out did not im- 
mediately relight themselves ; nor did he, as St. Thomas 
is said to have done, after all the obsequies of mortality 
had been performed about him, while he was lying upon 
the bier in the choir, raise his left hand and give the 
benediction. On the contrary, the sporting bishop could 
not rest in his cathedral-tomb. In the darksome night 
the people of his Buckinghamshire manor saw him 
clothed in a short coat of Lincoln green, with bow and 
arrows in his hand and a hunter's horn slung round his 
neck — a perfect verderer. Hither and thither he wan- 
dered through the glades and under the widespreading 
trees of the episcopal park. " You know," the forlorn 
ghost at last said, " with how great offence to God and 
the poor I enclosed this park ; and now, for penance, I 
am appointed its keeper until the land shall be restored 
to its rightful occupiers. I beseech you, therefore, to 
charge the canons of Lincoln to destroy the fences, that 
each man may have his own again." Possibly, rather 
than superstition, there was in this story a shrewd con- 
trivance for obtaining the restitution of rights. 

But such negligence of spiritual functions on the part 
of the clergy did inevitably lead to the religious and the 
moral degradation of the masses. They were as sheep 
having no shepherd. The physical wretchedness amidst 
which the peasant lived was a type of the inward 
desolation. His mind was not wholly a blank. He 
knew that the Milky Way was the path that led to the 
shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, that witches could 



404 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

work him ill and fortune-tellers forecast his future, that 
the sturdy friar who came round once in a while had 
relics rare and wonderful which would save a man's soul 
if only he could buy them, and that for a few logs or a 
bundle of hay or a goose he could obtain an absolution 
good against all possible contingencies. He knew, too, 
that the mysteries which were played in the church- 
nave were true as Scripture, that vows, pilgrimages, 
fastings and alms were marvellous means of grace, that 
miracles and ghosts were common as gnats beneath the 
willows, and that when he died he would suffer many a 
long year in purgatory because he had no one to pay 
for a mass for his soul ; so that his mind was not 
altogether vacant, and possibly into it may once and 
again have flitted a ray of comfort. But what wonder 
that vice abounded and suicides were common ? And 
more awful was the astounding fact that the people 
loved the darkness. When a reforming priest spoke at 
Leicester against the vices, follies, extravagance and 
false doctrines of the age, the women were so incensed 
that they stoned him out of the town. Some time later 
the prioress of a certain nunnery in Suffolk was brought 
to trial for her shameful conduct. She confessed her 
immorality ; peculation amounting to downright robbery 
she could not gainsay ; adultery was brought too plainly 
home to her ; but one accusation she vehemently denied : 
all sympathy with the teachings of John Wickliffe she 
earnestly repudiated. She was not so bad as that ! The 
work before Wickliffe was not only to denounce the 
sins of the clergy, but also to awaken the people them- 
selves to a sense of their own ignorance, danger and 
wrong-doings. 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 405 

Thus far the indictment is terrible, but the fiercest 
indignation of John Wickliffe, like the fiercest of William 
Langley, is poured out upon the friars. The monks 
may have been bad, but the friars had become superla- 
tively wicked. Lying miracle-mongers, indolent beggars, 
lewd, idle, drunken impostors, their hypocrisy, filthiness 
and iniquity defy description. They vended relics 
throughout the country ; to instance such is to expose 
the sacred and true to the ludicrousness and shame of 
the false. They violated all discipline, dropping into 
parishes and laughing at the constituted authorities. 
All the filth, depravity and covetousness possible to 
man was concentrated in the friars. Scoundrels of the 
deepest dye, shams of the rankest sort, villains without 
a shadow of excuse, Wickliffe has not a word in their 
favor. They swarmed thoughout the land as the 
summer-flies gather upon carrion. In numbers, vile- 
ness and disregard for religion and virtue they were 
approached only by the chantry-priests — men whose 
sole business it was to say masses for the dead. As 
people then rarely died without leaving money for such 
masses — one man directed a million to be said for his 
soul — the work demanded many priests ; the day's mass 
done, the priest had naught before him but idleness, and 
in that idleness he found abundant sin. Against such 
as these Wickliffe uttered the most scathing rebukes. 
He charged the friars with fifty errors of doctrine and 
practice, with stealing the alms of the poor, deceiving 
the common people with fables and legends, pretending 
to extraordinary sanctity and grasping at money by all 
sorts of means. Nor does he appear to have exagger- 
ated : others, who differed from him in principle, agree 



406 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

with him in testimony, and the feeling gained ground that 
the mendicant orders were daily ripening for the scythe. 

It is pitiful to behold bright colors fade into sombre 
hues, and to turn from gladness to distressing and 
terrible scenes. But the ivy of romance which poetry 
and time have caused to grow so beautifully and luxu- 
riantly over the past must not deceive us into suppos- 
ing that the work of such as John Wickliffe had no 
justifying cause or that the age needed no change. 
Complex it was : flowers of choicest sort grew amongst 
the weeds ; but the weeds threatened to kill the flowers 
and to render useless the soil, and, unless righteousness 
had wrought, all would have perished. 

The doctrinal position of John Wickliffe was soon 
defined. In a treatise called the Wicket he attacked 
without hesitation the dogma of transubstantiation, 
declaring that, while the sacrament was not a mere sign, 
but at once figure and truth, the body of Christ was 
only spiritually and sacramentally, and not substantially 
or corporeally, in the consecrated elements. He is said 
to have held the uselessness of the ministrations of 
bishops and priests who are in mortal sin, and even of 
excommunication unless a man have excommunicated 
himself. He denied the force of papal commands and 
the power of the keys, and claimed that the clergy, and 
the pope himself, if in the wrong, may be corrected by 
the laity. In one of his most remarkable books, the 
Trialogue, among other things, he denounced the doc- 
trines of saints, indulgences, the equality of tradition 
with Scripture and the confessional. It is unnecessary 
to trace the chronological development of these opinions : 
some were held at an earlier and some at a later period 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION 407 

in his career ; but with all he speaks of himself as a 
sincere son of the Church, willing to retract whenever 
he can be convinced he is wrong — a position his enemies 
never succeeded in establishing. 

The means WicklifTe adopted for the propagation of 
his principles were chiefly three. He instituted a broth- 
erhood, under the name of " poor priests," who, barefoot 
and clad in rough russet frocks, were sent into the far- 
off country-places to instruct the humblest classes of 
the people in religious truth. He translated, or caused 
to be translated, the sacred Scriptures into the common 
tongue, sending the whole or portions out by his preach- 
ers to the masses. Lastly, he permeated the land with 
his popular treatises on doctrinal and ecclesiastical sub- 
jects — short pithy tracts written in strong and clear 
English prose. The effect of these agencies was very 
great. Persecution began, as a matter of course. An 
attempt was made to get the version of the Scriptures 
condemned by Parliament, but John of Gaunt sturdily 
and " with a great oath " declared that the English would 
never submit to the degradation of being denied a Bible 
in their own tongue ; other nobles concurring, the effort 
fell through. Several times the ecclesiastical authorities 
summoned WicklifTe before them, but, while nothing 
came of their trials, the word of God was spread far 
and wide, the tracts were read everywhere and vast 
numbers of the people were enlightened and converted. 
In Oxford was found the chief stronghold of the reform- 
ing party ; in the neighborhood of Lutterworth, in Lei- 
cestershire, where, in 1375, WicklifTe had been appointed 
rector, a contemporary declared, " You would scarce see 
two in the way but one of them was a disciple of Wick- 



408 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

liffe." No opposition availed anything. Powerful friends 
stood by the new movement ; its results were evidently 
beneficial, and England had to wait for some years be- 
fore she learned the way of suppressing such work. 

The grand old Reformer remained in his parish to the 
day of his death, fearlessly and faithfully maintaining 
to the very last the convictions of his earnest soul. " I 
should indeed," he said, " be worse than an infidel if I 
were not ready to defend even to the death the law of 
Christ." He was summoned to appear in Rome and 
answer to the charges brought against him. " I know," 
was the reply, " by the faith which I have learned from 
the gospel, that Antichrist and his council can only 
destroy the body, but that Christ, whose part I sustain, 
can cast both body and soul into hell." He may be said 
to have died in harness. He was assisting in his own 
church at the celebration of holy communion on Inno- 
cents' day, December 28, 1384, when he was struck 
down with an attack of palsy, and on the last day of 
the year he was called away and entered into his rest. 
His enemies drew attention to the fact that as a judg- 
ment he was taken ill on the festival of St. Thomas of 
Canterbury, the champion and martyr of the hierarchical 
claims, and died on the festival of St. Sylvester, the pope 
on whom Constantine was supposed to have bestowed 
those privileges and endowments which Wickliffe had 
so boldly and consistently attacked. His remains were 
suffered to lie in the grave till 1428, when the Council 
of Constance ordered them to be taken up and burned. 
Like the ashes of Savonarola into the Arno, and of Huss 
and Jerome into the Trent, so the charred dust of John 
Wickliffe was thrown into the Swift. What mattered 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 409 

it ? The work done and the light shed by the " Morning 
Star of the Reformation " did not perish. The promise 
of the coming day was realized ; and as his ashes were 
borne by the river to the sea, and by the sea carried far 
away, so the truths he taught have been scattered in 
many lands throughout the world. 

It is well to indicate the immediate history of the fol- 
lowers of this wonderful and time-honored man. They 
were called " Lollers " or " Lollards," both expressions 
being intended as terms of reproach, the first meaning 
a lounger or an idle vagabond, and the second one who 
sings or hums — a canting mumbler. Their opponents 
also spoke of them as the tares, thus making a bad pun 
upon the Latin folia, and they charged them with receiv- 
ing the devil in the shape of a fly, and with swallowing 
candles of divers colors that they might savor of the old 
man. Such things, if the worst that malignity could in- 
vent, indicate the general purity and piety of Wickliffe's 
disciples. Nor were the disciples of the lower orders 
only : among them were many nobles and members of 
the most distinguished families in England. Much less 
was the movement territorially limited. The city of Lon- 
don, and in but a slightly less degree the whole country, 
became warmly " Lollard." It struck its roots deep. 
The contrast between its simplicity and energy and the 
general teaching of the clergy was so great that the 
people, wearied with the burdens under which they had 
long struggled, welcomed it as a last hope. The move- 
ment kept within the Church, not seeking to create 
schism, but rather to convert and to control the whole 
body of the faithful. It had nothing against bishops 
because they were bishops or against priests because 



4IO READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

they were priests ; only when they were bad and un- 
worthy men. If in some directions failure was imme- 
diate, in others much success was attained. The Bible 
soon became — so said an opposing contemporary— 
" more common to laymen and to women who can 
read than it is wont to be to clerks well learned and of 
good understanding." Strenuous efforts were made to 
improve the morals of the people, especially in London, 
and there is no doubt that the conscience of many an 
indolent but well-meaning clergyman was touched and 
greater zeal was created. 

It was, however, unavoidable in such an age that so 
radical a movement should overstep its legitimate bounds 
and run to excesses far beyond the expectations of its 
originators. Wickliffe is not responsible for the extrav- 
agant and revolutionary theories which so many of his 
followers adopted ; much less is he chargeable for the 
lapse of Lollardy into political partisanship. But when 
the king saw the new school of effort become the centre 
of the socialistic dreams of the age, he and most loyal cit- 
izens withdrew from it their favor. They were perplexed 
and frightened at the extent and the boldness of the 
assault upon long-existing institutions and popular cus- 
toms, and, suspicious of the part the " poor preachers " 
took in the peasant-revolt, determined upon suppression. 

At first imprisonment was the extreme penalty en- 
acted. The work of uprooting a system which threat- 
ened ruin to both Church and State, and was therefore 
political as well as religious, fell to William Courtenay, 
archbishop of Canterbury, a clergyman of great learn- 
ing and dignity, devout and pure in his life, and a son 
of the earl of Devonshire. His feelings were against 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 4 1 1 

both Wickliffe and his followers, but he failed to touch 
the former. Of the latter he recovered many — notably, 
Nicholas Hereford and Philip Repington, two of Wick- 
liffe's most intimate associates. The one died a Carthu- 
sian monk at Coventry, and the other became eventually 
bishop of Lincoln, a cardinal and a bitter persecutor of 
his former friends. Archbishop Courtenay, however, 
did not kill the movement. It is alleged that the Lol- 
lards were even bold enough to ordain men to the 
priesthood ; which, if true, would be the first historical 
instance of presbyterial ordination. On the other hand, 
the Parliament added to its series of protests against the 
papacy by passing in 1390 the statute of Provisors, 
whereby the pope was hindered from thrusting his ap- 
pointees into English sees and livings, and in 1392 the 
statute of Praemunire, which imposed forfeiture of goods 
as the penalty for obtaining any decree from Rome. 

In 1395, Thomas Arundel was translated from York 
to Canterbury- — a prelate of high birth, wise in state- 
craft, worldly, ambitious, vindictive and firmly opposed 
to Lollardy. When, largely by his instrumentality, 
Henry Bolingbroke was made king, he suffered his 
persecuting spirit full swing. The new sovereign owed 
his crown to the reactionary party, and was both excited 
because the Lollards were almost wholly on Richard II. 's 
side and ashamed for the motives which had once led 
his father to befriend them. He gave his support to 
the severest measures for blotting out the work of 
Wickliffe. Unfortunately, by their excesses and tur- 
bulent outbreaks the Lollards justified both king and 
archbishop. They lost their religious spirit and became 
incendiaries and demagogues ; in the end the movement 



412 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

was utterly broken up. The brilliancy of Henry V. and 
the splendor of his French wars directed the people's 
minds in another direction, and within fourscore years 
of Wickliffe's death there was none in the land who 
called himself a follower of that great man or professed 
attachment to Lollardism. 

Thus is sufficiently proven the assertion that the cen- 
turies immediately preceding the Reformation were not 
without their part in that great effort. They prepared 
the way. There were failure and defeat, but still the 
current of thought and opinion flowed onward. Dis- 
content and discouragement worked together with the 
keener insight and the deeper reflection. The good 
men on both sides furthered the one purpose ; the bad 
men on both sides were alike hasteners of the coming 
change. They who dreaded the revolution and longed 
to retain the past were as toilers striving to keep the 
driving rain out of the rent and broken hut. Here a 
crevice might be stopped up and the trickling stream 
stayed, but there the water came in afresh. The flood 
was upon them, and sooner or later the flood would 
sweep all away. And gentle, discerning souls, reading 
the signs of the times and watching the changes in the 
heavens, girded themselves for the struggle. Wistfully 
and lovingly they looked back to the things that had 
charmed them — the sweet associations, the dreamy 
splendor, the chiming of the abbey-bells and the rest- 
fulness of the abbey-life, the Fathers and the friends; 
then they wiped away the falling tears, and in the trust 
of Him who guides all things they turned to the new era 
and sought in that to do their duty and to find their joy. 

We too may love to linger in the memories of the 



BEGINNINGS OF REFORMATION. 413 

eventide of the mediaeval day. Its like can never be 
again ; both glory and shame have gone for ever. For 
this fact no one is to be blamed and no one is to be 
praised. The sun had reached the western sky, and no 
hand could stay its course. To-morrow comes the 
world's new life, and who shall say that it has not 
been better, nobler, grander? 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Saxon attir J5totes. 

An ancient saying has much truth in it : " Erasmus laid 
the egg, and Luther hatched it ;" for in the evolution 
which culminated in the crisis of the sixteenth century- 
Erasmus had a distinguished part and prepared the way 
for the efforts of the Saxon and the Swiss divines. Born 
at Rotterdam in October, 1466, and in his childhood 
sent to school at Deventer, at the age of thirteen he en- 
tered upon conventual preparation, and when nineteen, 
much against his will, at Stein, made his profession as 
an Augustinian canon. Afterward he was ordained 
priest. But neither the monastic life nor the priesthood 
had for him any attractions ; he was fond of learning, and 
longed for residence in the university. In 1489 he be- 
came for a brief while secretary to the bishop of Cam- 
bray, and at once passed from the seclusion of the 
cloister to the society of cardinals and princes, of schol- 
ars and artists. After residence at Paris, about 1497 he 
went to Oxford, where he remained for two or three 
years, and probably made the acquaintance of such Eng- 
lish scholars as Colet, Grocyn, Linacre and Latimer. 
Then, on the Continent, came ten years of wandering 
from university to university, picking up knowledge and 
suffering many privations. In 1509 he began to teach 
Greek at Cambridge. This was his favorite study. From 

414 



SAXON AND SWISS. 415 

the day in his early youth when an old Greek showed 
him a copy of Homer, he never rested in his pursuit of 
the Hellenic tongue and literature. He did not meet 
with much encouragement in England. There were, he 
says, five or six scholars in London who had not their 
equal in Italy, but at Cambridge the masters did all 
they could to bring him from Greek into their mill of 
dialectics. He avoided them that he might not waste 
time, and " lived like a cockle shut up in his shell, hum- 
ming over his books." His audiences were small. His 
wants were few : he asks only for a warm chamber, a 
clean hearth and, instead of the native beer, a little Greek 
wine ; but the fees were so scanty that he had to support 
himself upon presents from wealthy ecclesiastics. The 
day came when he writes : " Once I dreamed of gold in 
England ; now, like Ulysses, I would be glad to gaze on 
the chimneys of my own country." He left Cambridge 
in 15 13, having well begun his edition of the Greek Tes- 
tament. This was published at Basle in 15 16; and of 
Basle he became rector in 1522, and remained such till 
his death, in 1536. 

Erasmus was a man of a highly nervous temperament, 
emotional and susceptible to each passing movement. 
The times played upon his soul as the musician plays 
upon the harp, and to every touch he made response. 
He was one of those deep thinkers and well-read men to 
whom partisanship is an impossibility. He condemned 
the clergy and the monks : " Hypocrites reign in the 
courts of princes; the court of Rome is shameless; what 
can be more gross than these continued indulgences ?" 
And again : " Pope and princes treat the people as cattle, 
not as human beings." But he did not approve of 



410 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Luther's attack upon the Church and upon the old 
theology. He was conservative and inconsistent; in 
1520 he was alike censured by both sides. Probably 
he did not appreciate the differences ; probably he was 
unconscious of the fact that with his Greek Testament 
he was laying the axe at the root of the old tree. Stranger 
still, everybody recognized the value of his work. Leo 
X. accepted its dedication ; bishops were unanimous in 
their praises ; scholars made no exceptions to it. Then 
the Reformers took it up, and labored manfully with it 
against the very system that had so well sanctioned it. 
So with all his work ; the tendency was to mental ex- 
pansion, to the breaking away from authority. Had he 
been more theological and less literary, he would have 
been recognized as a leader of the " new learning ;" but 
his scholarship, playful wit, childlike piety and popular 
twists and tastes led men unconsciously to drift into the 
current of his thoughts. They did not know till too late 
that the spirit and the influence of classic literature were 
fatal to scholasticism, or that satire and ridicule were 
destructive of the monks. The step was great when he 
affirmed that not the correct presentation of a syllogism, 
but the life of morality and piety, makes the theologian ; 
greater, in his declaration, " I would rather hear un- 
learned maidens talk of Christ than certain rabbis who 
pass for men of high attainments." Much was involved 
in turning away from the mediaeval doctors to the pagan 
poets ; in his liberality Erasmus thought some of the 
latter inspired, and he affirms : " The spirit of Christ is, 
perchance, more widely diffused than we imagine, and 
many will appear amongst the saints whose names are 
not written in my calendar." Such sentences are seeds; 



SAXON AND SWISS. 417 

once lodged in the mind, they take root and grow. The 
age listened, but neither did the age nor did Erasmus 
realize the inevitable result of such teaching. His 
character is complex and subtile, but its most charming 
feature is a quiet, penetrating humor. Fish he could 
not eat : " his heart," he said, " was Catholic, but his 
stomach was Lutheran." He advises his friend Am- 
monius how he shall rub off some of his modesty, 
and begs him, whatever he does, to fight where he 
will take no harm. His horses troubled him much : 
once he declares that he has one free from all mortal sins 
except gluttony and indolence, and from Basle in 15 17 
he writes that, while he himself has grown as lean as a 
rake by ten months' hard study, his horse, having had 
nothing to do, has grown so fat that he can scarcely enter 
his stable. The letters and colloquies reveal a geniality 
and lightheartedness most delightful. Nor had his times 
one whom it more delighted to honor. He was the 
favorite of Europe. At every centre of learning were 
his books read, and both Saxony and Switzerland dis- 
cussed their might. He died, as he had lived, in the 
old faith, disliking the changes fast making, and yet 
doing more than any other man living to inspire and to 
strengthen the mind of Christendom for those changes. 
The two countries just mentioned — the one a republic, 
and the other a monarchy — were the two points from 
which the Reformation immediately sprang. Around 
each point gathered a distinct school, both one in their 
general protest against error, but differing much in par- 
ticulars of work and of doctrine. In the Saxon school 
one man is at the head and front ; in Switzerland a num- 
ber guide. The influence of the Saxon master is more 

27 



41 8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

universal ; that of the Swiss leaders, more immediate 
upon England. 

The first principle for which both schools contended 
was the right of the individual to decide what a revela- 
tion made by God to man requires him to believe. 
Against this doctrine was set the infallible legislative 
and supreme authority of the ecclesia docens, gradually 
removing that authority from the councils to the theo- 
logians, from the theologians to the hierarchy and from 
the hierarchy to the pope. From the outset the Re- 
formers protested against such an assumption. Coun- 
cils, divines, bishops and popes had contradicted one 
another and repeatedly reversed one another's judg- 
ments; the Scriptures were addressed to people so 
simple that all might understand, so positive that all 
were responsible; the early Fathers, such as Origen, 
Basil and Chrysostom, enjoined the duty of personal 
consideration and judgment; and reason showed that 
the Church should be tried by the Bible, and not the 
Bible by the Church. Therefore the Bible should be in 
everybody's hand ; even the ploughboy might take his 
Father's message, read, meditate and decide thereupon, 
compare the teachings of the clergy with its revelations 
and directly partake of its heavenly consolation. " Like 
as the errors of the clock," said Bishop Jewel in later 
years, " be revealed by the constant course of the sun, 
even so the errors of the Church are revealed by the 
everlasting and infallible word of God." Hence the 
affirmation of the doctrine of justification by faith 
alone. Sacraments, works of mercy, devotions, and 
the like were means to sanctification, but they had noth- 
ing whatever to do with salvation : that came only 



SAXON AND SWISS. 419 

through believing in Jesus Christ. Further study re- 
vealed the folly of the dogma of transubstantiation and 
the practices which follow in its train of adoration, 
oblation, solitary communion and auricular confession. 
Purgatory, the invocation of saints and angels, celibacy, 
monastic vows, papal authority, the worship of the 
Blessed Virgin, and many other distinctively mediaeval 
developments, were also found unable to stand the test 
of examination under the light of Scripture. The ques- 
tion concerning matters of religion was no longer What 
saith the Church ? but What saith the Lord? He gave 
no warrant for the abuses which tried the souls of the 
righteous ; therefore they should perish and he should 
be restored to headship over the Church. Undoubtedly, 
both Saxon and Swiss went farther than was necessary. 
Much they swept away which might well have remained, 
but the result of their work as a whole is unquestionably 
good. They exalted Christ; they helped man. They 
brought to light truths that had been buried beneath 
the weight of superstition and tradition, and they have 
sufficient justification in the contrast which still exists 
between the Reformed and the unreformed lands. In 
the work the Saxon school was only chronologically in 
advance of the Swiss ; before long, both doctrinally and 
potentially, the latter outstripped the former. 

The master of the northern centre was the mighty, 
overawing and controlling Martin Luther, History has, 
indeed, made him the principal figure of the whole 
Reformation ; no less attention can we give him. He 
it was who shook Europe to its very foundations. As 
he nailed his theses upon the church door of Witten- 
berg he sounded the death-knell of the past; as he 



420 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

flung the papal bull into the fire he aroused the spirit of 
the new times. Others had struggled and died in the 
early twilight ; they made ready the way, but the world 
would not awake from its sleep. Luther came ; he 
spoke, and men sprang up into the activity of life. 
They might befriend or they might persecute ; the one 
could not win nor the other crush into silence. He 
was the son of the fulness of time. Like the sun in his 
strength, he laughed at the puny efforts to put back the 
light and went on to meridian splendor. At his voice 
the mountains shake and the age trembles. 

Only the child of poverty-stricken, toiling parents, 
born at Eisleben on St. Martin's eve in 1483 ; then a 
scholar at Eisenach, picking up learning and begging in 
the streets for the bread to eat and the rags to put on ; 
afterward, in 1 501, a student, and in 1505 a friar, at 
Erfurt; by and by, in 1508, lecturer in philosophy at 
Wittenberg. An honorable career, but with nothing 
extraordinary about it. Already had he had some 
spiritual experience. When nineteen years of age, he 
was saved from imminent death. Standing with his 
dear friend Alexis under a tree during a thunderstorm, 
the lightning rent them apart. Luther looked with fear 
upon the charred body of his comrade, and in the 
awful moment he gave himself up to God. Henceforth 
his desire was to find peace. He was social, strongly 
sensuous, passionately fond of art and music, his manner 
calm, courteous, unassuming and obliging and his tastes 
both studious and literary, but that for which he now 
longed was the holiness and the power of the saint. 
Through weary nights he watched and prayed. His 
fastings and his conflicts wasted his body and brought 



SAXON AND SWISS. 42 1 

his mind to the edge of delirium. Then one of the 
aged friars reminded him of the article of the Creed, 
" I believe in the forgiveness of sins." He applied it ; 
the light came. When professor at Wittenberg, he 
brought into prominence this truth, in 15 13 openly 
preaching justification by faith. But so far there was 
nothing in the modest, thin, spare man to indicate the 
destiny-controller and the world-wielder. They who 
looked upon him discerned nothing great. He was 
only as a star faithfully and silently wending its way 
amid the brilliant streams of the sky; only as a sea 
scarcely rippled by the wind, upon whose face play 
the sunlight and the shadows. But wait till the storm 
comes. Across the still waters sweeps the tempest ; then 
follow the cry of irresistible might, the crash of break- 
ing waves, the whirl of snow-white foam, the cloud- 
driven sky, the trembling rocks, the yielding sand : the 
giant is awake. So with Martin Luther. Touch his 
soul, and his force becomes irresistible, awful, crushing. 
Arouse his anger, and his words of fierce denunciation, 
fiery wrath, convincing zeal and scathing energy like 
huge, vast waves roll on to the ends of the earth, bear- 
ing before them all that dare stand in their way. In 
calm he may be gentle, insignificant ; in storm he is an 
Elijah, a John the Baptist, a god among men. Up to 
the year 1517 he moved placidly along maturing in 
soul, but keeping his thoughts pretty much to himself 
and conforming to the practices of the Church. 

At noon on the All Saints' day of that year came the 
crisis. Leo X. had found it necessary to replenish his 
coffers ; he therefore issued a decree of indulgence. 
Whoever bought a share in such, according to the price 



422 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

paid, would have remission of all sin for some time past 
or future — one sin excepted, the importation of alum 
from any except the papal mines. The business was 
farmed out, an enterprising ecclesiastic paying down a 
lump sum for a given district, and then, by selling the 
indulgences at his own price, making what he could out 
of his bargain. The district to which Wittenberg be- 
longed fell to the lot of a Dominican friar named Tetzel, a 
native of Leipsic and possessed of a large fortune. He 
travelled from town to town in superb style, attended by 
a considerable retinue and welcomed by the ringing of 
bells and by solemn processions. The indulgence bull 
was carried before him on a velvet cushion. He went 
to the parish church and proclaimed his mission. The 
value of the indulgence he set forth in most extravagant 
terms. Every sin that man or woman had committed, 
or could commit — always excepting the use of other 
than papal alum — was forgiven. Money poured in. 
The venders merrily hummed out the couplet, 

" When in the chest the coin doth ring, 
The soul direct to heaven doth spring." 

Tetzel had no reason to complain ; his little slips of 
parchment pardons sold fast enough. But when peo- 
ple had bought their absolution, they no longer went to 
confession and there was no more check upon their 
tendency to wrong. Even Erasmus complained of this 
shameful license to sin. Luther did more; he was cut 
to the heart. That autumn, while Tetzel was in his 
neighborhood, he preached from his pulpit several ser- 
mons to demonstrate that a change of heart was the 
sole condition for a forgiveness of sins. In one he 



SAXON AND SWISS. 423 

declared, " If some to whose coffers such truth is pre- 
judicial call me a heretic, I make little account of their 
clamor, for it proceeds only from a few muddy-brained 
fellows who have never so much as scented the Bible, 
never read the doctrines of Christianity, never under- 
stood their own teachers, but are wellnigh rotting in 
their ragged and tattered opinions." Then he wrote 
out his ninety-five objections to indulgences, took his 
hammer and a few nails, and fastened the document 
upon the church door, so that all who chose might 
read. In a month's time the printers had scattered 
Luther's protest all over Europe. 

This act reveals the secret of Luther's strength. His 
eagle-eye pierced the mists which baffled and blinded 
men, and discerned the evil which was bringing to them 
death ; his lion-heart shrank not from the consequent 
duty. Others might talk and weep and wonder : he 
must act. He must expose the wrong, drag it out into 
the light, and even strip it of its dress of antiquity or 
authority. It was false ; therefore away with it ! Men 
read his words ; more, their hearts burned within them ; 
still more, they knew that he spoke truth ; and yet more, 
Europe was riven in twain. Nor did either friend or foe 
expect that he who had thus dared the world would 
change his mind. All knew that he was sincere and 
. unyielding. The deed was done, and he would stand 
by it. He was excommunicated ; one who had gone as 
far as he had cared not for the like. The pope issued a 
bull condemning him and his doctrines ; he proclaimed 
to all Wittenberg that he would burn the papal decree. 
This he did, December 10, 1520, at nine o'clock in the 
morning, many of the doctors and students applauding. 



424 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

All Germany knew that the power of the Roman see 
had been defied and broken; much of Germany, and 
especially Frederick, elector of Saxony, rejoiced with 
Luther. 

Philip Schwarzede, or Melanchthon, cast in his lot with 
Luther in 15 18. He was of a rare culture, having been 
made a B. A. of Heidelberg when only fourteen years 
of age, and an M. A. at Tubingen when seventeen. His 
birth -year was 1497 ; his father was called " the lock- 
smith of Heidelberg.'' In 15 13 he published a Greek 
grammar; in 15 19 he held a controversy with Eck, 
chancellor of the University of Ingoldstadt and one of 
the ablest divines of the age. Melanchthon studied in 
the three faculties, but never became an ecclesiastic. 
A better theologian than Erasmus and more scholarly 
than Luther, he supplied the new movement with unex- 
celled learning, and by his mildness and gentleness sub- 
dued the vehement ardor of his great master. He and 
Luther worked side by side lovingly for many years. 
The Reformation era has no character more beautiful. 
When dying, one inquired if he needed anything; he 
replied, " Nothing but heaven, therefore ask me no 
more." His days were placid to the last. 

In 1 521 the emperor Charles V. held a diet at Worms, 
and in the April of that year Luther presented himself 
before it for trial. The signs were ominous. Not only 
had he burned the pope's bull, but he had also violently 
attacked the whole papal system in his book the Babylo- 
nian Captivity of the Church of God, published October, 
1520. Both pope and emperor were incensed at him; 
the greater part of Christendom hated him. But his 
heart did not fail him : he knew the righteousness of 



SAXON AND SWISS. 42$ 

his cause. As he walked to the hall of judgment he 
heard the weary and oppressed masses crying, " Deny 
Him not, good Martin ; whosoever denieth him before 
men will he deny." At the door a gray-haired warrior 
tapped him on the shoulder : " O little monk, little monk ! 
thou art marching now to make such a stand as was 
never known either by myself or many another officer 
in the hottest battle. If thou art in the right and sure 
of thy cause, go forward in God's name, and be of 
good cheer, for he will not forsake thee." Another 
instant, and Luther beholds his judges — an emperor and 
two hundred illustrious prelates and princes. He looks 
round upon the splendor, faces the sea of enraged, 
fretting virulence, remembers that untold thousands of 
hearts in Europe are turning to him their bitter, deadly 
thoughts; but he does not flinch. Neither then nor 
afterward, for he had to appear a second time. Boldly 
does he vindicate his position : " If Your Imperial Maj- 
esty and Your Graces require a plain answer, I will give 
you one of that kind without horns and teeth. It is 
this : I must be convinced either by the witness of Scrip- 
ture or by clear arguments, for I do not trust either pope 
or councils by themselves, since it is manifest that they 
have often erred and contradicted themselves ; for I am 
bound by the Holy Scriptures which I have quoted, and 
my conscience is held by the word of God. I cannot, 
and will not, retract anything; for to act against con- 
science is unsafe and unholy. So help me God ! Amen." 
Further discussion followed. The emperor bade the dis- 
putants cease ; the man was the enemy of God. Luther 
turned his face to the imperial throne, and replied, " I 
can do naught else. Here stand I. God help me! 



426 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Amen." He was taken away from the hall, his heart 
sad within him, but his boldness had won him many 
friends. His own sovereign, the elector Frederick the 
Wise, went entirely over to his side. The landgrave 
Philip of Hesse took him by the hand, saying, " If you 
are in the right, doctor, may God help you !" Even 
Duke Eric of Brunswick, though an adherent of the 
mediaeval party, sent him a can of beer by a page. 
Luther tasted the beer; then he said, "As Duke Eric 
has this day remembered me, so may our Lord Jesus 
Christ remember him in his last struggle !" Eric thought 
of these words on his death-bed, and desired a page who 
stood by to refresh him with the consolations of the 
gospel. 

Luther was dismissed from Worms, and an imperial 
decree placed him under the ban of the empire. Hence- 
forth all persons were forbid to house him, to give him 
food or drink, or to aid him secretly or openly, by word 
or by work. The elector Frederick was so afraid that 
evil might happen him that he contrived his arrest on 
his way home. Luther was seized and taken by friendly 
hands to the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach. Here 
he remained from May 5, 152 1, to March 3, 1522. He 
was disguised as a knight, wore long hair, put on a 
sword and was instructed how to behave as a gentle- 
man of leisure. Both friends and foes were alarmed at 
his disappearance ; some said treachery, and others said 
a sham. When Melanchthon had certain information, he 
was transported with joy : " Our dear father is yet alive!" 
This was the romantic episode of the Reformation in 
Germany. Luther's room, high up in the castle, " in 
the region of the birds," became the scene of terrible 



SAXON AND SWISS. 427 

spiritual conflict. Here the devil appeared, mocking 
him with malicious grimaces, and here industrious hands 
have renewed from time to time the stain upon the door 
said to have been made when Luther flung his inkstand 
at the prince of darkness. It seemed to Luther that the 
powers of evil had gathered for a final struggle, but he 
cried, " Though I stumble often, yet the hand of the 
Most High holds me up." In the seclusion he wrote 
some exquisite expositions of portions of Scripture, and, 
taking Erasmus's Greek Testament, he translated it into 
the German vernacular. Upon this popular version of 
the word of God he instinctively felt the Reformation 
depended, and, though the whole Bible was not finished 
till 1534, the part done circulated far and wide. At the 
same time Melanchthon published a resume of Protest- 
ant doctrine in finished style and scientific form. His 
Majesty of England, Henry VIII., also put out a book 
against Luther's treatise on the seven sacraments, for 
which he received from the Reformer a crushing re- 
joinder and from the pope the title of" Defender of the 
Faith." By the day that Luther left Wartburg the liter- 
ature for and against the new movement had attained 
enormous proportions. Everywhere men were eager to 
know the latest argument on either side. Excesses, too, 
had developed, and hot-headed partisans had gone far 
beyond the lines which the master sanctioned ; but the 
fact was clear as the sunlight : the papacy was not as it 
had been only five short years earlier. Its power was 
broken and Protestantism had struck its roots deep in 
the earth. 

In the mean while, among the mountains of Switzer- 
land a similar work was going on. The central figure 



428 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

of the Swiss school was Ulrich Zwingle, born of a good 
family at Wildhaus, in Toggenberg, in 1484. After 
studying at Berne and Vienna he became schoolmaster 
in Basle, where Thomas Wyttenbach, one of the first 
pioneers of evangelical truth in Switzerland, was lectur- 
ing in theology. This man, before Luther had spoken, 
had declared against many abuses and pointed men to 
Christ. Around him gathered some earnest spirits ; 
among them were Zwingle and one who afterward be- 
came Zwingle's loving and faithful Triend, Leo Juda of 
Rapperswyl. Leo was to Zwingle what Melanchthon 
was to Luther, an amiable, kind, gentle and merciful 
associate, a lover of music and a warm adherent of the 
" new learning." Together the two proceeded M. A. In 
1 5 12, having received orders, Zwingle went as pastor to 
Glarus and Leo Juda to St. Pilt, in Alsace. At first 
Zwingle preached a moral reformation; in 15 14 he met 
Erasmus at Basle, and not only caught from him the 
spirit of the new life, but also made with him a lasting 
friendship. Two years later he became pastor of Ein- 
siedeln, the abbot of which place was already far on the 
way to the Reformation. There Zwingle began to 
preach that simple gospel of Christ which was destined 
so soon to win the hearts of his countrymen. In 15 18 
he denounced the sale of indulgences. The next year 
he was made pastor of Zurich, and in a little time Zu- 
rich was the centre of the Swiss school. Up to this 
time he had read nothing of Luther's ; soon he found 
how greatly he differed from him. The difference was 
natural. Zwingle excelled Luther by his firmness and 
security of judgment in individual cases. He was always 
moderate whilst Luther was sometimes fanatical, and 



SAXON AND SWISS. 429 

mild whilst Luther was passionate to the extreme. 
Luther had more imagination, more buoyancy of mind, 
than Zwingle, and less common sense. The one was a 
German, and therefore a monarchist ; the other a Swiss, 
and therefore a republican. The one, a monk, full of 
contemplation, intuitive, had fed in the cloisters upon 
the mystic Augustine ; the other, a secular priest, ob- 
servant and reflective, had formed his mind upon the 
genial classics, the models of the ancient world. Two 
such men could not see eye to eye nor become cordial 
associates. 

In nothing was the divergence between the two divines 
and their respective schools more shown than in the doc- 
trines concerning the Eucharist. Luther's poetical nature 
led him to see more in the sacrament than did Zwingle's 
reflective and critical mind. He could not admit that 
the verb " is " meant " signify " or that the Supper was 
a bare memorial of an absent Lord. He claimed that 
while the elements remain the same after consecration 
in both accident and substance, in, with and under them 
is the real body of Christ. The communicant was so lit- 
erally and corporeally united with Christ as to be sure 
of the resurrection, and on the altar the Saviour was 
objectively present. To Zwingle this spirituo-corporeal 
manducation was a contradiction in terms, like " wooden- 
iron." He could not understand a physical or a real 
presence on the altar of a body which had ascended 
into heaven. Nor did he believe in such consequences 
as flowing from participation. A bitter dispute accord- 
ingly ensued between Saxon and Swiss, resulting in the 
more exact definition of their varying positions. But 
Zwingle set forth this beautiful illustration : " As a 



430 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

flower is more glorious when entwined in the wreath 
of a bride than it would be elsewhere, and yet, so far as 
its bare material is concerned, is the selfsame thing 
whatsoever its position ; and as a man who has stolen 
the signet of a king is held responsible for more than 
the mere value of the gold of which it is composed, 
though it differs not in material from any other gold 
ring, — so in the Lord's Supper the bread is of one 
substance with all other bread, but the use and dignity 
of the Supper confers upon it a loftiness of character 
which causes it to differ from other bread." 

So in the sixty-seven articles drawn up for the public 
disputation held in Zurich, January 29, 1523, Zwingle 
went farther than Luther's theses had gone. The arti- 
cles were short and never more than of local authority, 
but they were full of Christ as the only Saviour and 
Mediator, upheld the Bible as the sole rule of faith, and 
attacked the papal primacy, the mass, invocation of 
saints, meritoriousness of human works, fasts, pilgrim- 
ages, celibacy and purgatory. Zwingle defended the 
document in the presence of the civil magistrate and 
about six hundred persons with such success that the 
magistrate ordered all the ministers of the canton to 
preach nothing but what they could prove from the 
gospel. Another disputation, before nine hundred peo- 
ple, was held the following October, and a third in Jan- 
uary, 1524. Then did the canton abolish the old and 
establish the Reformed faith. In 1528, Zwingle pub- 
lished ten theses for a disputation to be held that year 
at Berne. Their tenor is Christ the Head of the Church 
and the only satisfaction for sin ; no corporeal presence 
of Christ in the mass, no sacrifice of the mass and no 



SAXON AND SWISS. 43 1 

purgatory ; image-worship contrary to Scripture ; mar- 
riage free to all men, and the Church consisting only of 
the true and obedient children of the word. An attempt 
was made in 1529 to bring the Swiss and Saxon schools 
together. Seventeen articles were drawn up at Schwa- 
bach, but they only emphasized the differences. Two 
years later the Reformed and unreformed cantons of 
Switzerland went to war with each other. Zwingle 
marched with the troops of Zurich, and was slain in 
battle. 

Other men were in the front of the struggle with 
Rome. Leo Juda had gone in 1523 to St. Peter's 
church in Zurich, where he remained till his death, in 
1542. His voice and his courage obtained for him the 
title of " Master Lion." CEcolampadius had also won 
a high degree among the brethren. He was born in 
1482 at Weinsberg, in Franconia, and, after studying 
law in Italy and theology in Germany, in 15 15, at Basle, 
met Erasmus and assisted him in his Greek Testament. 
Association with this great scholar had its effect. CEco- 
lampadius went to Augsburg cathedral, but his plain 
preaching was too much. He spent two years in a 
monastery, then left it confessing that he had " lost the 
monk, but found Christ." He proclaimed the Refor- 
mation in 1523 at Basle, much to the displeasure of 
Erasmus. There, in 1525, he caused the mass to be 
abolished, and in 1528 the Reformed doctrine to be 
established. His character was neither so imposing as 
Luther's nor so energetic as Zwingle's, and, though 
something like Melanchthon, he did not attain to his 
greatness. But he was conspicuous for his fidelity to 
God and to man, and his preaching had a permanent 



432 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

effect. So highly respected was he that the people of 
Zurich selected him to follow Zwingle. In vain ; the 
death of Zwingle broke his heart : he died the same 
year. On the last night of his life ten clergymen were 
with him ; he said, " I will tell you something new : I 
shall soon be with the Lord Jesus." The day was just 
breaking when he passed away. 

The successor of Zwingle was Heinrich Bullinger. 
He was born in 1504 at Bremgarten, near Zurich, and 
when twelve years old was sent to school at Emmerich, 
in the Netherlands, where, like Luther, he earned his 
bread by singing from door to door. At the University 
of Cologne he met with the writings of Luther and 
Melanchthon; and when, in 1522, he returned home, 
he had made much progress in the study of the Scrip- 
tures. He obtained employment as a teacher at the 
Cistercian monastery of Cappel, under the pious and 
enlightened Wolfgang Joner. The boys he instructed 
in the Latin classics ; the adults, in the writings of the 
Reformers. The abbot, though a strict churchman, was 
won by the youth of nineteen to the gospel. Zwingle 
and CEcolampadius also became Bullinger's warm 
friends, and in 1531, when both were dead, he was 
made pastor of Zurich. His ministry there continued 
to 1575, when he died. He was a powerful and volu- 
minous writer and an earnest preacher. To the English 
refugees during the Marian persecution he showed great 
hospitality, and from him they learned many of those 
views which later gave rise to Puritanism. All the im- 
perial and papal power was exerted to crush him; his 
days were full of tribulation and family sorrow, but he 
died in peace, highly esteemed among men. 



SAXON AND SWISS. 433 

After Luther left Wartburg his prominence in the 
Saxon Reformation grew less distinct. The work had 
outstripped him. Not that he labored less, but there 
were more in the field. So powerful, indeed, had the 
Reformed party become that in 1530 the emperor com- 
manded the Lutheran princes to draw up a statement 
of their faith and present it at a diet to be held in Augs- 
burg, in Bavaria, in order that, the differences between 
Protestant and Catholic being settled, the empire might 
unite in a war against the Turk. This confession — or, 
as it was first called, "Apology" — was prepared princi- 
pally by Melanchthon, and was remarkably moderate 
and conciliatory, manifesting a desire rather to keep 
within the boundaries of the Latin Church than to 
break away. It was earnest, devout, dignified, scriptural 
and mild, defensive and not aggressive, and pleaded for 
toleration and peace. There are twenty-nine articles, 
the first twenty-two relating to matters of faith and 
being positive or dogmatical, and the other relating to 
ecclesiastical or disciplinary abuses and being negative 
and polemic or apologetic. In view of the troubles of 
the previous thirteen years, Hagenbach says, " In re- 
garding this instrument we seem to be standing on the 
borders of a limpid lake the wild tumult of whose late 
storm-tossed waters has subsided, and in which the sun, 
once more issuing from the clouds, is mirrored, though 
the agitated waves are not yet entirely at rest." It 
became the model of most subsequent Protestant con- 
fessions of faith. At the diet, held in June, even the 
opponents were surprised at its moderation, and the 
bishop of Augsburg is said to have declared privately 
that it was pure truth. But when examined more 

28 



434 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

closely, the diet refused to accept it ; compromise was 
found impossible, and finally the one side resolved that 
the other should either change their mind or suffer 
extermination, and the other side determined that by 
the grace of God neither should be their lot. 

Dark days were yet in store for Germany, but the 
work of Luther was not to be overthrown. Men com- 
plained that his language was strong and violent," and 
not unfrequently coarse and rude. But he who is 
struggling for life must either win or die. Luther was 
rent and torn by the storm ; he rises in his heroic might 
to seize and guide the very winds. He could not avoid 
striking hard blows; none other would the age feel. 
There was much in his words and works faulty, but, 
like mingled grain cast into the soil, that which is good 
and true springs up and bears fruit, and that which is 
worthless dies and passes away. There was, too, 
another side to Luther. In 1525, eight years after his 
quarrel with Tetzel, he married Catherine von Bora, and 
never was home-life more hallowed and delightful. 
There his heart of love and kindness brought out the 
sweetest graces. His taste for music was as great as 
his trust in prayer was wonderful. His was not a 
religion which would stifle affection or a piety which 
needed force to keep it alive. He was in every sense 
natural — stern and violent in storm, beautiful and lovely 
in calm. Before evil his soul grew awful and terrible, a 
whirlwind of furious scorn, an utterer of lightnings 
which scorched, burnt, killed ; standing by the death- 
bed of his darling little Magdalene, he pleads that the 
child may live, and then with subdued and trembling 
thought he follows her gentle soul winging its way 



SAXON AND SWISS. 435 

through unknown realms till at last it rests upon the 
bosom of her Lord. Those tender virtues grow like 
ivy over his strong walls ; they are as the light which 
gleams through pent-up window and iron-barred gate. 
He sets aside the heavy tome and forgets the burning 
controversy, and with little children romps and plays, 
and with friends and neighbors gossips and sings songs. 
The hymns which he wrote are still familiar. His ex- 
ample of frequent prayer and meditation can never be 
forgotten, and they who love him think not of the 
violence and the harshness when they remember his 
affectionate, constant friendship, his sympathy for the 
helpless and suffering, his appreciation of human pleas- 
ures, his longing to make all men happy and his abso- 
lute trust in God. Moreover, in all that he did there 
was a lack of self-consciousness. He was thoroughly 
honest — as much so in his disputes with Zwingle and 
his rebukes of Satan as in his confession of personal 
sin. He abhorred the affectation of pious feelings, the 
assumption of righteousness and the assertion of ex- 
traordinary experiences. If in his youth he desired to 
be a saint, in his mature years he was content to forget 
self and the future of self, and to rest in the shadow of 
God. Thus by his sincerity has he won the hearts of 
men. 

Luther died in 1546, at the place where he was born. 
In the January of that year he journeyed through many 
perils from Wittenberg to Eisleben. The freshets were 
high, and once he narrowly escaped drowning. Ex- 
posure brought on a severe cold. But he labored in- 
cessantly at the work before him, settling affairs of the 
Church and of the princes and preaching four times. 



436 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Then he took to his bed, and his friends saw the coming 
of the end. To the last he testified his adherence to 
the faith he had taught. " My heavenly Father," he 
cried, " my eternal and merciful God, thou hast revealed 
to me thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ; him have I 
taught, him have I acknowledged, him I love and honor 
as my dear Saviour and Redeemer." About the time 
of sunsetting, February 18, he passed peacefully away. 
His remains were taken to Wittenberg, where Melanch- 
thon, who survived him fourteen years, pronounced his 
eulogy. "Alas!" exclaimed the faithful friend; "the 
leader and chariot of Israel are taken away ; departed is 
he who hath led the Church in this last hoary age of 
the world !" Now the two men rest side by side. 
Rome questioned their mission, among other things, 
because they had wrought no miracles. Even Luther, 
it was said, was not able to restore a dead dog to life. 
But what greater attestation of divine approval could 
there be than the work itself ? He found Europe dead, 
and he left it alive ; he saw Christendom languishing in 
the stupor of medievalism, and when he spoke all men 
listened. That the soil had been prepared and the age 
made ready for the change does not detract from the 
glory of the man who gathered up the forces and 
struck the shattering blow. 

Henceforth it was impossible for the Latin Church to 
avoid some efforts at reconstruction. If it stood still, 
the Reformation would sweep it away. Therefore the 
pope summoned the Council of Trent. Its first sessions 
were held in the January of 1546; when it closed, in 
1563, it had established the doctrinal system which still 
holds modern Rome. A definite bulwark was thus 



SAXON AND SWISS. 437 

raised against Protestantism, and able scholars came to 
the defence of the long massive line of walls. Nor was 
this all. In the year 149 1, at the castle of Loyola, in 
the county of Guipuzcoa, in Spain, was born Don Inigo 
Lopez de Recalde. His youth was spent after the fash- 
ion of the noble-born ; he became an accomplished 
knight and a versatile courtier. A wound in the foot 
received at the defence of Pampeluna against the French, 
in 1 52 1, occasioned his confinement to his chamber. 
Here he read of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic, 
and from thence he repaired to the lonely monastery of 
Manresa, resolved to emulate their deeds and to give 
himself up to the service of the Church. There he re- 
mained some time. Later he went on a pilgrimage 
to Jerusalem, then returned to Spain, and at the age of 
thirty-three took his place among the schoolboys of 
Barcelona. But neither grammar nor the elegant writ- 
ings of Erasmus had for him the absorbing attraction 
of Thomas a Kempis. Like Luther, he delighted in 
the mystics and the ascetics ; and when Christ drew 
near to him, it was not, as with Luther, in the written 
word, but in the mystery of the altar-sacrament. He 
received M. A. at Paris in 1534, and then began to form 
a society which should have as its first object the pres- 
ervation of the faith, and as its first rule unconditional 
obedience to the Roman see. Seven men united in the 
vows August 15, 1534; others joined them, and together, 
at Venice, in 1537, they were ordained priests. In 1540, 
Paul III. approved of their order. It spread everywhere, 
and by Francis Xavier was established in India. Schools 
and hospitals were founded ; churches were built ; intel- 
lectual culture was encouraged; and when, in 1556, 



438 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Ignatius Loyola died, the Society of Jesus could boast 
of one thousand members and one hundred colleges. 
Outside of this order also arose two remarkable men— the 
Florentine, Philip of Neri, born in 15 15 and died in 1595, 
and the Spaniard, Peter of Alcantara, born in 1499 and 
died in 1562. They were distinguished for their piety 
and devotion. Beside them is St. Theresa. The seri- 
ousness of her youth was deepened by the influence of 
the Confessions of St. Angnstine ; she became one of the 
most beautiful of pure and severe ascetics, and when she 
died, in 1582, at the age of sixty-seven, was known as 
one of the holiest of women. Thus to the rescue of the 
old religion came the forces of positive theology, of ener- 
getic association and of unquestionable sanctity. When 
they were well in the field, the progress of the Reforma- 
tion was effectually stayed ; from that day nothing was 
regained and nothing was lost. The relative position of 
both parties has not changed since : both hold their 
own ; neither makes any lasting impression upon the 
other. This is one of the most curious phenomena in 
Christendom. There are Protestant missions in Italy, 
and there are Roman missions in England ; both claim 
a certain progress, and both are sanguine of the future ; 
but the prevailing type of religion in both countries re- 
mains the same. Even Switzerland, the home of Zwin- 
gle, and Germany, the home of Luther, are unchanged ; 
side by side are Reformed and unreformed provinces, 
to-day as they were three hundred years ago. Possibly 
the secret lies in the fact that even Rome exalts the 
Christ, that even she listened to the voice of Luther and 
abandoned sufficient that was derogatory to that Christ 
to set him forth as the Redeemer and the Consoler of 



SAXON AND SWISS. 439 

men. Certainly she manifests a sincerity she had not 
in the days when Erasmus uttered his pleasantries, and 
when Rabelais laughed his scorn at money-grasping 
pontiffs and indifferent, dissolute priests. 

If Erasmus made ready the way for the Reformation, 
to John Calvin fell the work of giving it its most perma- 
nent form. This incomparable man, as Richard Hooker 
calls him — this illustrious person, who, according to 
Bishop Andrewes, is never to be mentioned without a 
preface of the highest honor — was born July 10, 1509, 
at Noyon, in Picardy. His father was well-to-do, saga- 
cious, experienced and prudent; his mother was pos- 
sessed of many personal attractions and a vivid and 
earnest piety. His boyhood was marked with strong 
religious tendencies. At Paris he outstripped his com- 
petitors in philosophical studies, learned that pure and 
idiomatic style which characterizes his Latin writings, 
and from reading the sacred Scriptures imbibed doubts 
concerning the old faith. He went to Orleans to study 
law; so hard and successfully did he work that the 
university made him a doctor without demanding the 
usual fees, but he gathered those germs of disease which 
eventually brought on his early death. Thence he pro- 
ceeded to attend the lectures of the learned Alciati at 
Bourges, where he met the German Volmar, professor 
of Greek and an adherent of the Reformed party. Twelve 
years had now passed since Luther had published his 
theses ; Germany was astir, and in France many were 
listening favorably to the new teaching. Volmar con- 
firmed Calvin in his attachment. The young man joined 
the secret sympathizers of the Reformation at Bourges 
and taught them in private. He preached also in the 



440 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

neighborhood, converting and strengthening many, and 
by his depth of knowledge and gravity of style winning 
the admiration of all. In 1529 he returned to Paris, 
where he devoted his time to theology, but also pub- 
lished Seneca's De dementia with an elaborate commen- 
tary in his own pure, terse Latin. Having broken utterly 
with the old faith, he was obliged to create a new system 
within himself. By the time he was twenty-four he 
stood at the head of the Reformation in France ; then, 
in 1533, came the trial. A new regent of the Sorbonne, 
Nicholas Cop by name, had to deliver an oration before 
the university. Calvin composed it for him, and so 
strongly was it in favor of the Reformation that both 
men found it expedient to leave the country. Cop went 
to Basle ; Calvin, in the guise of a vinedresser, fled to 
Margaret, queen of Navarre, at whose court, under an 
assumed name, he remained for some time. Then, at 
the risk of his life, he promised to hold a disputation at 
Paris with Servetus ; he went, but the Spanish heretic 
evaded him, and Calvin was obliged to flee to Basle. 
There he wrote, and in 1536 published, his famous In- 
stitute of Christian Religion — a work wonderful for its 
theology and Latinity, and still more wonderful as being 
the production of a young man. In his lifetime he 
brought out many editions, none, however, materially 
differing from the first. The book exerted a most pro- 
digious influence upon the opinions and the practices 
of both contemporaries and posterity. In 1537 he was 
constrained to settle at Geneva. The ecclesiastical 
troubles, however, were too great, and he soon left for 
Strasburg. There he married. At the diet at Ratisbon 
he met Melanchthon ; then, in 1 541, he returned to Ge- 



SAXON AND SWISS. 44 1 

neva and proceeded with his measures of reform. Ser- 
vetus again appeared on the scene, openly proclaiming 
his heresy and exciting much opposition. He was 
arrested, tried and sentenced to death. Calvin sought 
for a mitigation of the judgment, but the authorities 
were immovable ; even Melanchthon affirmed its justice 
and necessity, and the unfortunate Spaniard was com- 
mitted to the flames. Soon the Genevans learned to 
obey their spiritual ruler. When they ventured to in- 
sist upon a notorious offender being admitted to the 
Lord's Supper, Calvin declared, " I will suffer death 
sooner than with my own hand give the holy of the 
Lord to such convicted despisers of God." 

Calvin was of middle stature ; his complexion was 
pallid and dark ; his eyes were clear and lustrous ; his 
nerve and will were iron ; and, unlike Luther, who in 
the latter years of his life became stout, his person was 
spare and thin. He was startlingly severe ; yet when 
unruffled, he exposed an urbanity and a complaisance 
most winning. Nor did he care so much to brandish 
the war-club as to drive home to the hilt the keen blade 
of scholarship and logic. Nation had he none, no earth- 
ly fatherland, as had Luther and Zwingle ; his vocation, 
he thought, was to gather all into the City of God and 
to recognize none but the new creature in Christ Jesus. 
He had no poetry, and little humor ; no sense of the 
ludicrous, and no aptness at pleasantries such as appear 
in Master Martin's Table-Talk. The same sternness 
which distinguishes his divinity like the cold gray face 
of a winter-seized rock marks his life, but, as within the 
rock may be the fine gold and underlying the divinity 
are truths beautiful and soul-sustaining, so the life had 



442 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

more than appeared on the surface. There was a piety 
none the less real because unemotional and unpoetical. 
The trust in God and the love of Christ were not marred 
because wrapped within the folds of unflinching and sys- 
tematic doctrines. He had a loving impulse to help and 
to advise on every side, to visit the sick and the needy, 
to guide the embarrassed and to be the friend of all. 
The flowers of Christianity he could not scatter: he 
knew little of their grace, and perhaps thought their 
beauty perishable and their fragrance vain ; but he had 
precious pearls and gems to give — the assurance God- 
ward, the immediate providence, the absolute trust — and 
with a quiet hand he smoothed the brow on which his 
Master should set the unfading diadem. His industry 
was marvellous ; compared with the other Reformers, 
he might have said, " I labored more abundantly than 
they all." His influence also went farther; beyond 
Switzerland and France it was paramount in Scotland 
and powerful in England. 

What Thomas Aquinas did for mediaeval Christian- 
ity and the Council of Trent for Roman, John Calvin did 
for the Reformed. He gave it shape and distinctness. 
The outline became clear and the substance solid. To 
trace out the development would be too long a task; 
only upon the doctrine of the holy communion may a 
word be said. In that Calvin differed from both Luther 
and Zwingle. He claimed that in the consecrated ele- 
ments Christ's body is present — not substantially, but 
dynamically and efficaciously. As the sun is in the sky, 
but its heat and light are here on earth, so Christ, though 
literally in heaven, is also potentially within this sacra- 
ment. The bread and the wine therefore are not merely 



SAXON AND SWISS. 443 

signs or symbols, but bread, and wine phis this dynamical 
presence. They become the instruments by which Christ 
effects his purpose in the soul. Themselves useless, the 
power lies in the virtue added to them. The bullet does 
not kill, but the will which sends it, operating with it ; 
and so the will of Christ, uniting with these sacred ma- 
terials, gives the vivifying might, the strengthening grace 
and the supernatural consequences of immediate and 
physical communion with him. This view of the Real 
Presence greatly influenced the English Reformers, if, 
indeed, they did not adopt it and graft it in their Liturgy. 
Nor did Calvin object to a liturgy or to bishops. He 
opposed the first Edwardine book, but he entered into 
negotiations with England for the establishment of epis- 
copacy in Switzerland. The Jesuits intercepted the let- 
ters, and they did not come to light till after Calvin 
was dead. 

Twenty-eight years of ceaseless toil told upon a consti- 
tution never strong and weakened by frequent illnesses. 
In February, 1564, Calvin preached his last sermon. 
On Easter day he was carried to church and received 
the sacrament from the hand of Beza. Lying in the 
arms of that same faithful Beza, in the evening of May 
27 he quietly died. "At the moment when the sun 
went down," says the good Theodore, " the greatest 
light that ever shone for the benefit of God's Church 
on earth returned to heaven." The grief of his friends 
was great ; even his enemies bore witness to his disinter- 
ested and unselfish spirit. Pius IV. said that the strength 
of the heretic consisted in the fact that money had no 
power over him. His body was laid in the grave with- 
out the slightest ostentation. Only lately a black stone 



444 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY, 

was placed on the spot beneath which the Reformer's 
dust is supposed to be. 

Such were the men who carried out the great change 
of the sixteenth century on the Continent. They were 
no strangers to the old system against which earlier 
prophets had lifted up their voice, but sons, cherished, 
trained and, until they spoke, honored and admired. 
The age had no greater scholars — none that left upon 
it a more lasting impression. Largely in the university 
they gained their learning, some of them in the cloister 
their piety; they wrote, preached and printed; they 
erred as all men err and differed one from another, and 
they made their generation splendid in heroism and eter- 
nal in power. If they went out from the great historic 
Church, it was because the great historic Church had no 
room for them. When the Vatican awoke, it was too 
late : the Reformers had gone and half of Western 
Christendom was lost. 



CHAPTER XV. 

3$enrg, aaJoteeg anir atrantner- 

Western Christendom in the Middle Ages consisted 
of a confederation of churches recognizing the Roman 
see as the centre of unity and the bishop of Rome as 
the overbishop of the world and the vicegerent of God 
on earth. For long the individuality of the national 
Church was neither destroyed nor ignored, though the 
tendency was not so much to develop either it or the 
confederation as to absorb both in the Roman Church. 
One privilege after another was given up, until national 
rights were entirely lost and an Italian diocese became 
the ruler of all the dioceses — or, rather, extended its 
bounds to the limits of Christendom and reduced the 
once independent or allied provinces and sees to subdi- 
visions of its own territory. Before this absorption had 
been attained on the Continent, the Reformation separat- 
ed the Church of England from the confederation and 
caused her to claim those ancient rights and privileges of 
autonomy and self-development which had been endan- 
gered by the assumptions of the pope. There was no 
break in either her continuity or her organization. The 
same body which had recognized the papal supremacy 
rejected it. Instead of individuals going out of the 
Church and forming new societies, the Church changed 
as a whole, its princes, bishops and clergy leading in the 

445 



446 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

work and its laity conforming thereto. The alterations 
effected were sanctioned by the convocation and the 
Parliament, by both spirituality and temporality. For 
instance, instead of the Book of Common Prayer being 
set forth by unauthorized persons or compiled from 
unauthorized sources, it was the work of a commission 
appointed by the Church, presided over by the arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and composed of divines some 
of whom favored mediaeval practices and others adhered 
to the new learning. These men, who once sang the 
mass in Latin, themselves changed its ceremonies and 
turned the service into English. They stood at the same 
altars, in the same buildings and before the same peo- 
ple. Through every phase of the English Reformation 
the same succession of bishops was maintained, no cathe- 
dral throne was left vacant, no violation was permitted 
of the law and precedent of Christendom. Even the 
name continued as of old. The ivy was cut off the 
walls, but the walls remained. 

In this respect, and also in its causes, progress and 
effects, the English differed materially from both the 
Saxon and the Swiss Reformations. It was not so radi- 
cal, and scarcely so heroic. Even the three Oxford 
martyrs, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, never rise to 
the splendor of Martin Luther or to the power of John 
Calvin. They have beauty and grace, as have the Eng- 
lish hills and brooks, but of Alpine sublimity and ocean- 
like power they know nothing. Indeed, their needs 
and their circumstances prevented this. England had 
not so many abuses to remove as had Europe generally ; 
those abuses which she had her rulers in both Church 
and State were anxious to remove ; the people were by 



HENR Y, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 447 

no means dissatisfied with everything that was ancient, 
and national conservatism prevailed at all times. The 
aim of the English Reformers was first to break from the 
entanglements of the Latin confederation, and then to 
bring the Church back again to the faith and the prac- 
tice of early Christianity. They would abolish nothing 
but innovations and usurpations. 

To indicate the course of this work, and especially 
the part taken in it by the king, the statesman and the 
martyr whose names designate this chapter, is our pres- 
ent purpose. 

Henry VIII. was born June 19, 1 49 1. The world's 
new life was then coming on apace. Christopher Co- 
lumbus, Giovanni Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci were 
on the eve of revealing to Europe a vast continent in 
the Western main. Ere long Copernicus would tell the 
mysteries of the starry sky, Ariosto sing his Southern 
songs, and Raffael, Titian, Vinci and Correggio display 
their transcendent genius in the domain of art. With 
them many a scholar was making ready for the change 
which should end the mediaeval millennium and begin 
a new age. That change was foretold as plainly as the 
soft rose-gray light of the orient proclaims the coming 
of day ; and in the brightening twilight, amid its best 
and fullest influence, the son of Henry Richmond was 
brought up and prepared for the work which fell to 
his lot. 

The second of the Tudors received the crown of Eng- 
land June 24, 1509. A youth of eighteen, graceful in 
person, his stature like that of the son of Kish, and his 
royal bearing, earnest spirit and clear ruddy complexion 
such as to excite the admiration of all who saw him, he 



44 5 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

was the darling of the people and the most popular of 
English princes. He had a good education, cultivated 
tastes, great industry and an indomitable will. His 
court lost its former stern, sombre character and be- 
came magnificent and gay. Handsomer than any sov- 
ereign in Christendom, his rich and superb robes were 
the admiration of the world. He was fond of athletic 
sports ; rising daily at four or five o'clock, and being 
a capital horseman, he frequently followed the chase till 
nine or ten at night. In the winter he played snowball 
with his lords, and in the summer met them in the ten- 
nis-court. Sports — especially of the Christmas-tide — 
music and wit delighted him. He was free, jovial, good- 
humored and gracious. He was also assiduous in his 
attention to affairs of state. In him were united the 
reckless profusion and the voluptuous habits of the 
Yorkists and the suspicious temper and the money- 
loving tendencies of the Lancastrians. His administra- 
tion was just and vigorous. By his side was Cardinal 
Wolsey, the most faithful of his friends and the great- 
est statesman of the age ; around him were counsellors 
whose fidelity, experience and wisdom satisfied his keen, 
perceptive mind. The work before him was the recon- 
struction of England, and nobly was the work done. 
Times were bad ; the Wars of the Roses had depleted 
England of men and of money. The baronage was 
almost destroyed ; the precious metals were frequently 
so scarce that leather was coined instead. Henry made 
new lords and watched them with an eagle-eye, pene- 
trating their very soul and instantly detecting the tend- 
ency to serve self at his expense ; he secured the loy- 
alty of the people by lending them money, encouraging 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 449 

their trade and taking their part against the classes 
which stood between him and them. For the first 
twenty years of his reign was England happy. King 
and subjects trusted and loved each other ; prosperity 
returned and injustice was stayed; learning, religion, 
arts and commerce were encouraged, and both at home 
and abroad the world recognized the prowess and the 
ability of Henry. 

During those twenty years Thomas Wolsey guided 
his sovereign's policy. He was born in 147 1 at Ipswich, 
and after studying at Oxford with much credit and dis- 
tinction was ordained in 1500. Four years later he en- 
tered court-life, where his learning, extreme eloquence, 
exhaustless energy and many gifts were speedily recog- 
nized and rewarded. The cautious Henry VII. and his 
light-hearted son became his close friends ; in the year 
the former died Wolsey was made dean of Lincoln, and 
rapid promotion followed the accession of the latter. 
More statesman than ecclesiastic, his idol was the king. 
With his chivalrous and romantic loyalty, he devoted 
his life and his abilities to his royal master. He fought 
for him at the battle of the Spurs ; he rejoiced with him 
over Flodden Field. He showed that he could command 
a troop as well as lead in a council, and could arrange 
the etiquette of courts, inspect beer-barrels and biscuits 
for the navy, conduct an intricate diplomacy and admin- 
ister law with equal assiduity and success. Nor did the 
king forget him. He was made bishop of To.urnai in 
1 5 13 ; the next year, bishop of Lincoln, and then arch- 
bishop of York ; the year following, cardinal of Rome 
and lord chancellor of England; and in 15 18, legate. 
From his bishoprics and other benefices held in com- 

29 



450 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

mendam he received a large revenue, which he em- 
ployed rather for public than for private purposes. 
His magnificent establishment corresponded with his 
extraordinary power, but both were made to subserve 
the king. He loved architecture and learning, and 
built at Ipswich a school, at Oxford a college and at 
Hampton a palace — all worthy of one who had wealth, 
and who received from kings and from peoples an atten- 
tion and a respect never given to another prelate. 
Abroad he raised England from a third-rate power 
and set her beside the realms of Charles V. and 
Francis I., making her the controlling factor in Euro- 
pean politics. At home he managed every department 
of state. Ambassadors and princes found him haughty 
and difficult of access, but to the poor he was gracious, 
hearing their suits and anxiously giving them both just- 
ice and quick despatch. Over the king his influence 
was unbounded, yet there is no instance in which he 
abused that influence or unrighteously exceeded the 
authority it gave him. He even suffered the blame of 
the king's mistakes, and allowed the king to be excul- 
pated at his expense. His enemies, as they grew in 
number and in bitterness, pointed out his accomplished 
duplicity, his proud bearing, his wellnigh regal pomp 
and his unyielding purposes, but they said naught of 
the unparalleled difficulties of his position, the multitu- 
dinous problems before him and the splendid successes 
which crowned his efforts. 

Both Henry and Wolsey conformed to the customs 
and the doctrines and protected the interests of the 
Church. The king every day heard from three to five 
masses and attended vespers and compline, and the car- 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 45 I 

dinal was no less devout ; but, while the latter had no 
interest in the religious questions of the day, the former 
sometimes thought for himself. He defended mental 
and extempore prayer, held with Erasmus that the 
secrets of Omnipotence should not be too narrowly 
searched into, admitted that it was a good thing for the 
Scriptures to be read in all languages, only not in the 
monk of Wittenberg's translation, laughed occasionally 
at the pope, sought to outwit him, refused his nuncios 
and forbade the publication of his bulls, and governed 
more as a national than as a Catholic churchman. He 
refused to interfere with John Colet, dean of St. Paul's 
from 1504 to 1 5 19, and one of the most godly and most 
advanced scholars of the age, who freely condemned his 
foreign policy, earnestly pleaded for ecclesiastical reform, 
eloquently and popularly expounded the Scriptures, and. 
even ventured to deny verbal inspiration and to affirm 
that it was better to love God than to know him. Nor 
did the king trouble because the dean preached against 
the worship of saints and of images, complained of the 
frigid custom of using written sermons, declared that he 
got much profit out of heretical books, disliked bishops 
and celibacy, and expressed his disbelief in the benefit 
of pilgrimages to Canterbury and in the effect of the 
relics there. The charge of heresy was, indeed, brought 
against the bold divine, but Archbishop Warham dis- 
missed it as frivolous, Erasmus desired to embalm his 
memory, and the king, after drinking his health, ex- 
claimed, " Let every man have his own doctor : this is 
mine." But no one suspected Henry of Protestant tend- 
encies. For his little book against the Saxon Reformer 
— who when he had read it observed, " Asses love net- 



45 2 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

ties " — he received the titles of Fidei Defensor and Luther- 
omastica. At the court-revels the new movement was 
parodied and ridiculed, favorite characters being Heresy, 
False Interpretation, Corruption of Scripture and Lu- 
ther's wife. These never failed to furnish merriment to 
prince and to lords. Nor did Henry remain indifferent 
to the evils which disruption was bringing upon the 
Church. He openly deprecated the efforts to break up 
the past, and in his letters to the pope expressed the 
fullest sympathy for him in his afflictions. Hence all 
Europe regarded him as one of the soundest adherents 
of the papal see ; the pope sent him a golden rose 
anointed with chrism, and foreign prelates presented 
him with relics of rare virtue and of great costliness. 
But all Europe did not know Henry. He defended 
the Church, loved England and worshipped God, but be- 
yond and above them he defended, loved and worshipped 
Self. They must serve Henry, or Henry must break with 
them. This is the key to the dark side of his character. 
He was no profligate and no hypocrite, but he bent all 
things, statesmanship, society and religion, he sacrificed 
friend and persecuted foe, not subtly but palpably, to 
gratify his own personal whims. He could walk in the 
garden at Chelsea with his arm around the neck of Sir 
Thomas More, one of the most lovely spirits that ever 
adorned a court, professing eternal amity, and Sir Thomas 
More could write, " If my head would win him a castle 
in France, it should not fail to go." Under his bluff, 
open-hearted good-humor and frankness were watchful- 
ness, silence and suspicion. If what he saw was helpful 
to himself, well ; if not, then he struck as suddenly and 
as remorselessly as a beast of prey. Therefore he lived 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 453 

in an atmosphere into which none might enter — perhaps 
forced into it when he saw the intrigues and the plots of 
the men around him. Probably he realized that either 
he or they must reign — that either he or they must hold 
the prize of England. Well was it that he had the will 
and the power. His very selfishness was by Him in 
whose hands are the hearts of kings made to work for 
the good of his country. His prosperity and England's 
prosperity were identical ; had they not been, then Eng- 
land would have been sacrificed to Henry, surely and 
remorseless. So for a while the Church's interests were 
one with the royal interests ; the moment they differ- 
entiated, the Church was forsaken. Hence he obeyed 
the pope, went to mass, protected the monks and main- 
tained the old faith generally — not because he loved 
them, but because he received good from them. He 
gave them up not because he hated, or even disliked, 
them, but because their power to help him was gone. 
For Self the cardinal substituted the king, but not to 
the extent of sacrificing his own integrity in the further- 
ance of his purposes. He did not favor the Reforma- 
tion, nor was he, on the other hand, a defender of that 
system against which the Reformation was mainly 
directed. His position was more that of conservative 
indifference — that is to say, he was content with things 
as they were : if aroused, his influence would go to their 
support, but ordinarily they failed to interest him. In 
other words, much as he loved splendor and pomp in all 
things, he was in no sense theological. The questions 
which divided Christendom were both beyond him and 
disturbing elements; for statesmen love rather those 
things which tend for peace and unity than those which 



454 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

are apt to multiply the difficulties of government. And 
yet, like Erasmus, Wolsey was a preparer of the way for 
the coming change. Doctrines he did not understand, 
but men he read with a precision rarely at fault. Beneath 
the show and the pretensions of the papal court he saw 
the sham and the sin. From first to last he treated the 
pope purely as a political personage, the same as Their 
Majesties of Germany and France. He intrigued with 
and against His Holiness, and he knew that His Holiness 
intrigued with and against him. All the tricks of diplo- 
macy which were rife in secular kingdoms were equally 
rife in the spiritual kingdom. After all, the pope was a 
man — a great man, it was true, and powerful in the world, 
and, like other and powerful men, using every means at 
his disposal to advance his own interests and to retard 
those of others ; but as a spiritual chief, as an apostle of 
truth and holiness, Wolsey never thought of him. And 
doubtless Wolsey lay the papal heart before Henry, so 
that Henry too might know the uniformity of human 
nature. Both king and cardinal were ambitious : the 
one would be emperor and the other would be pope, and 
each was eager to further the other's wishes, but they 
accustomed themselves to think of the wearers of the 
diadem and the tiara as men no better than other men, 
till at last all reverence vanished. Probably both Wolsey 
and Henry thought likewise of the prelates around them. 
Good and holy men there were, but there were also 
schemers, plotters and self-seekers. Orders did not 
make the receiver virtuous : if he were not already honest, 
no dignity would make him so. Outward conformity 
there might be, but the cardinal and his master saw deeper 
than that, and they knew that bishops and priests were 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 455 

like popes and kings — no better and no worse. There 
was, therefore, in Wolsey's mind little or no sense of the 
higher qualities of man, no matter what was his office. 
The office might be great, but the holder of it might be 
small ; and, in any case, the office might be played for 
and the holder treated as a piece on a chess-board. 

In two important respects was Cardinal Wolsey a 
helper in a movement with which he had no sympathy : 
he prepared the way for the abolition of monachism, and 
he opened the road to the rejection of the papal suprem- 
acy. 

Many causes induced Wolsey to attempt the dissolu- 
tion of the monasteries. In the first place, he needed 
their revenues for the purposes of education. For three 
hundred years monachism had declined. Few new 
houses had been founded, and with the growth of peace 
and the increase of home-comforts men were not so 
ready to enter the cloister. The brotherhoods had di- 
minished in numbers till many abbeys were little better 
than social clubs with half a dozen members. These 
members, principally taken from among well-to-do peo- 
ple, had a pleasant life neither irksome in its discipline 
nor evil in its results. They enjoyed such good things 
of this world as came in their way, said their prayers at 
stated times, visited and returned hospitality, protected 
their interests, and were generally liked by their tenants 
and their neighbors. The spirit of asceticism had gone. 
One house which seems to have needed some correction 
begged Wolsey not to press its reformation too hard, for, 
" now that the world is drawing to its end, very few de- 
sire to live an austere life." Complaints, indeed, were 
made of irregularities, but these complaints, made by 



456 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

people in full sympathy with the old regime, show that 
the standard expected was far above that total depravity 
to which some have since alleged the monks to have 
fallen. Morals never sunk to such a depth that an abbey 
became a "nest-bed of corruption." Here and there 
abbots were negligent and brothers were indifferent ; but 
when their sins were brought to light, discipline and 
punishment were administered. The worst thing that 
could be said against the monasteries was that they had 
outlived their usefulness. The decay came from within, 
and not from without. They were no longer needed, 
and, since schools and colleges were springing up every- 
where, the question of diverting endowments from the 
old societies to thern became practical. Moreover, what- 
ever influence the monks had went in two directions, both 
of which jarred with the policy of Wblsey and of Henry. 
In the abbeys the papacy found its strongest support. 
Bishops and seculars were oftener on the national than 
on the papal side ; the monks, never : they clung to the 
pope at all times and under all circumstances. Had 
their power been as great in the sixteenth century as it 
was in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, an independent 
Church would have been impossible. No king then 
could rule without considering them, and both Henry 
and Wolsey knew enough of state-craft not to suffer any 
one class in the community to dictate or exclusively to 
influence the nation's policy. If the monks favored the 
pope more than they favored the king, the monks must 
be curbed. Nor, on the other hand, were their demo- 
cratic tendencies more kindly regarded. In the abbey 
all were brethren ; the officers were elected ; every mem- 
ber had a voice and a vote in the management of affairs, 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 457 

and any appearance of irresponsible personal govern- 
ment was avoided. The opposite theory was the Tudor 
policy. Henry observed law and ruled by Parliaments, 
but he so managed as to have both law and Parliament 
agree with his will. The people spoke, but they always 
said what the king wished. They believed in him, and 
Henry believed in him too ; hence the growth of that 
absolutism which characterized this remarkable dynasty 
and the development of the spirit of reverence for the 
person of the sovereign. To further this purpose, a wit- 
ness to the power of the people such as that furnished 
by the monasteries must be removed. No man must 
imagine that he had a right to select his ruler or to dis- 
cuss the acts of that ruler. 

Political expediency and financial necessity, combined 
with the fact of the decay of the institutions themselves, 
forced on the question of dissolution. A precedent 
already existed. In 141 4 the Commons petitioned that 
the alien priories should be taken for perpetuity into 
the king's hands. It was done, and one hundred and 
ten houses were suppressed. The pope had also sanc- 
tioned the conversion of decrepit and useless establish- 
ments into schools. In 1497 he commissioned the bishop 
of Ely to break up the house of St. Rhadegund at Cam- 
bridge and build on its site Jesus College. In 1524 he 
gave Wolsey permission to turn into a college the mon- 
astery of St. Frideswyde in Oxford. The same year 
Clement VII. issued a bull enabling Wolsey to appro- 
priate the revenues of such houses whose annual income 
was less than three thousand ducats, and whose inmates 
did not exceed seven brothers. Popular opinion ap- 
proved of these measures. Fox, bishop of Winchester, 



45 8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

wrote in January, 1521, to the cardinal to thank him 
for the reformations which he proposed. The good 
bishop declared that in his diocese he had found the 
clergy, and particularly the monks, so depraved and 
corrupt that he had despaired of any perfect improve- 
ment, but, now that one with such skill in divine and 
human affairs as Wolsey had was prepared to drive away 
such abuses, he had good hope. In this work Wol- 
sey employed commissioners, chief among whom was 
Thomas Cromwell, an able and a clever attorney. They 
investigated the affairs of every house doomed to disso- 
lution, and upon their report the members were trans- 
ferred to larger establishments and the estates to the 
cardinal. Thus, as Fuller puts it, the great statesman 
cut away the underwood ; by and by the king would 
fell the oaks. But the anger of the monks never cooled 
toward the former. They hated him, maligned and per- 
secuted him, and cast the whole weight of their influence 
into the efforts made for his overthrow. Nor could the 
advocates of reform befriend him, for he despised and 
repudiated their proposals. 

The other great matter in which Wolsey had a part, 
and which led to both the Reformation and his own ruin, 
was the separation of Henry and Catherine. This unfor- 
tunate princess, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella 
of Spain, had been married at the age of sixteen to Ar- 
thur, the elder brother of Henry. Her husband died six 
months later, in 1502, a lad of fifteen years and husband 
only in name. The virgin-widow was then betrothed 
to her brother-in-law Henry, and a dispensation was 
obtained from the pope to make such a marriage lawful. 
She was five years older than the prince, and the wed- 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 459 

ding - was to be solemnized when he had completed his 
fourteenth year. It did not, however,, take place till 
1509, seven weeks after the accession of Henry to the 
throne. For some years the two lived happily together. 
Catherine was quiet and pious in disposition, stout in 
figure, with a fair complexion and old-fashioned ways, 
and she made an affectionate wife and a good mother. 
Henry loved her, though he did not consider it his duty 
to continue faithful to her. The chronicler pleasantly 
records among the events of the meeting of Henry and 
Francis at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in 1520, the 
visit of the king of England to the French queen. The 
ladies of the latter were assembled to receive His High- 
ness. He passed slowly through their ranks, leisurely 
admiring their charms, and afterward kissed them all. 
Such gallantry was the order of the English court, and 
Catherine did not murmur. Unfortunately, her father 
used her as a political tool, and involved her in many 
unpleasant difficulties with both the king and his council. 
Still more unfortunately, her husband was prone to the- 
ological discussion. He began to question the legality 
of a man's marrying his deceased brother's wife. The 
winsome ways of one of his queen's maids of honor, 
Anne Boleyn, niece of the duke of Norfolk, added in- 
clination to the workings of conscience. After seeing 
the charms of this pretty coquette he no longer cared 
for the ugly Catherine. From about 1524 the royal dis- 
turbance grew. Henry could satisfy neither mind nor 
heart. The maid of honor would have naught to do 
with him except as his wife, and the queen would not 
die. In 1526 he sought to find some way to have his 
marriage with Catherine annulled. He induced Wolsey, 



460 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

as papal legate, to summon him before his court to 
answer to the charge of living with his brother's wife. 
The attempt failed : much as Wolsey loved the king, 
he did not approve of the king's proposal. Two years 
later the question was referred to the pope ; if the pope 
pronounced a divorce, the cardinal would be satisfied. 
He even urged His Holiness to do so, warning him that 
greater evils would follow if the divorce were withheld. 
But the pope had to choose between the husband and 
the nephew of Catherine. Charles V. was not likely to 
allow so great an indignity to befall a member of his 
imperial house. Clement was willing to accommodate 
the English king to the utmost of his power, but all 
that he could do was to appoint a commission to try 
and report upon the case. The commissioners were 
Wolsey and Campeggio. They held their court, and 
before they came to a decision the pope in 1529 com- 
manded the trial to be transferred to Rome. 

The example of Louis XII. and Jane of France fur- 
nished Henry with a precedent, yet with utter incon- 
sistency he sought for that which he denied his sister 
Margaret of Scotland. To that imperious dame he had 
even written letters of exhortation to conjugal obedience 
and to avoid the desire she had for divorce. Margaret, 
however, was like her brother in more respects than 
one. Her first husband died at Flodden, her second she 
divorced, and her third she tried likewise to get rid of; 
but death came, and she had no time to marry a fourth. 
When Henry was put off by the pope, he was as furious 
as she had been at the thwarting of her will. 

Nothing restrained the wrath of the king. The first 
result was the ruin of Wolsey. He had not been so 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 46 1 

eager as he might have been. Indeed, a strong party in 
the court had used Anne Boleyn to effect this result. 
About the year 1520, Henry surrounded himself with 
such men as the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir Wil- 
liam Compton, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Gilbert Pickering, 
Sir Henry Norris, Sir Thomas Boleyn and George Bo- 
leyn — each as profligate in his life as he was corrupt in 
his principles. Sir Thomas More would not meet them, 
Wolsey was too full of state-business to care for men 
such as they, and the king fell gradually and certainly 
under their influence. They discovered his weakness 
and helped him to the indulgence of his whims. They 
hated the cardinal with unrelenting vehemence. Soon 
they saw the way by which his power could be broken. 
That the quiet and elderly woman who had thought her- 
self the wife of Hemy and the queen of England should 
be sacrificed caused them no anxiety : the end would 
justify everything; so the daughter of one of them, and 
the relative of them all, was brought forward to supplant 
Catherine of Arragon in the king's affections. In a little 
while, Anne of the swan-like neck — the little, lively, 
sparkling brunette — with her black-blue Irish hair and 
her dark fascinating eyes, her ready conversation and 
her quaint, pretty ways won the love of the impetuous 
and selfish Henry. His inclinations were furthered to 
the point which gave meaning to the plot : Anne would 
be his wife, but she would not be his mistress. Hence 
the need of divorce — an act which the Boleyn party 
full well knew that Wolsey could not effect. That great 
statesman accepted the infallible authority of the pope, 
but, unless the pope dissolved the marriage, he would 
not consent to the conspiracy against the queen. Hence 



462 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

from the first the feeling was decidedly antagonistic be- 
tween the upright, clear-headed Wolsey and the light 
and thoughtless Anne Boleyn. She was glad to help 
her friends to remove from power one who clouded her 
hopes and rebuked her ambitions. The cardinal well 
knew that his sacrifice was not only determined upon, 
but was also nigh at hand. 

So disappointed was Henry at Wolsey's failure to 
secure the divorce, and so prompt and vigorous were the 
persuasions of the Boleyn faction, that he gave up his 
faithful minister to the mercies of the foe. In October, 
1529, a writ of prcemnnire was issued against Wolsey. 
He was to be tried for having at the king's request ex- 
ercised legatine powers in England ; then the great seal 
was taken from him, and in November the bill of his im- 
peachment was brought into Parliament. Henry, how- 
ever, was not quite ready to crush him, and the following 
February he gave him a full pardon and restored to him 
the temporalities of York. Shorn of his power and 
broken in heart, Wolsey went to the seclusion of his 
northern diocese and devoted himself to his episcopal 
functions. But in November, 1530, he was summoned 
to London. His enemies had now the way to his death. 
The poor cardinal started, but sickness came upon him. 
Eighteen days he spent at Sheffield Park ; thence he 
went, in the custody of soldiers, to Hardwick Hall. The 
next night he rested at Nottingham ; then he set out for 
Leicester, so feeble that he could scarcely sit upon his 
mule, all regarding him as a dying man. In the dark 
eventide he was met at the gateway of the abbey of 
Leicester. The abbot greeted him affectionately ; the 
torches lighted up the weird scene. " Father Abbot," 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 463 

said the cardinal, " I am come hither to leave my bones 
among you." Two days later, on the eve of St. Andrew, 
he passed away, and early on the morrow of the feast 
the remains of the magnificent cardinal were laid in the 
earth. 

Henry did not grieve over the- sacrifice of the man 
who had made his reign so glorious ; he possessed him- 
self of his property and pursued his plans for a divorce. 
The question turned upon the right of the pope to dis- 
pense with a universally-accepted law. That question 
was submitted to the universities of Europe, and agents 
were supplied with ample means to induce these scholas- 
tic bodies to decide in Henry's favor. Eventually they 
did so decide, but to the last Luther and Melanchthon 
condemned the king. Nor did any intrigue, persuasion 
or bribe help the pope ; he was in the grip of the em- 
peror, and could say nothing. It was well. Had he 
granted the divorce, the tie of the papacy would have 
bound England to Rome and stayed the Reformation. 
There is no doubt that Henry had many in Europe who 
agreed with him in his principle, though they condemned 
his motive. The principle became a keynote in the 
struggle of the age ; it assumed proportions which af- 
fected society in every direction. Was Catharine Hen- 
ry's wife ? Had the pope the power to make her such ? 
All Europe asked the questions, and Europe divided 
upon the answers. The man, however, was soon found 
who settled the matter, so far as England and Henry 
were concerned. 

When the pope directed the trial to be continued at 
Rome, Henry, in great perplexity, went to Waltham. 
Among the members of his court who attended him 



464 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

were his secretary, Gardiner, and his almoner, Dr. Fox. 
These two there met an old college-friend, and with him 
entered into the subject of the day. The friend was 
Thomas Cranmer, at this time divinity lecturer in Jesus 
College, Cambridge, and one of the university exam- 
iners in theology. He was a native of Aslacton, in Not- 
tinghamshire, and was born July 2, 1489. His family 
was ancient, honorable and prosperous, but in after- 
years, like Thomas a Becket and Cardinal Wolsey, he 
suffered the charge of lowly birth. To disparage a man 
because of his origin was in olden time a favorite course, 
though with unconscious inconsistency they whose 
claims were highest had no feeling against the founders 
of Christianity and thought William of Normandy as 
good as themselves. It was given out that Cranmer had 
been a hostler or an innkeeper; according to Fuller, 
the slander was verified : hostler-like, " with his learned 
lectures he curried the lazy hide of many an idle and 
ignorant friar." Of his boyhood we know little. His 
early days were spent in the ancestral home, among the 
beauties of the county of the merry Sherwood, and his 
first instructor in letters was " a rude parish clerk." 
Much of his diffidence and timidity is traceable to this 
4< marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster." He was 
also taught the exercises which were deemed proper for 
gentlemen, and learned to acquit himself well in sports 
and games, to ride with the swiftest in the chase, and to 
cast off his hawk as well as the most accomplished fal- 
coner. Even when archbishop, he loved to show his 
power to ride and control the roughest horse. 

In 1503, at the age of fourteen, Cranmer entered Jesus 
College, Cambridge, and soon distinguished himself by 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 465 

the assiduity and success with which he devoted himself 
to the study of philosophy, logic, the classics, the works 
of Erasmus and the sacred Scriptures. During his long 
residence in the university he came under the strong in- 
fluence of the school in which Erasmus was so renowned 
a leader. The development of that school was rapid 
and radical ; in it were Tyndale, Coverdale, and others 
who were destined to help in bringing in the new life. 
Cranmer proceeded to his degrees, became fellow of his 
college, then married and lost the fellowship, but, his 
wife dying within a year, he obtained it again ; afterward, 
about 1520, he received orders, and in 1523 he was made 
Doctor of Divinity. His abilities were generally recog- 
nized. Gladly would Wolsey have had him join the 
new college just founded at Oxford, but Cranmer pre- 
ferred continuing his work in the university where he 
had already spent twenty years of his life. Perhaps 
Cambridge was more congenial for one who had already 
ventured to disagree with much that was popularly ac- 
cepted. Luther had spoken, and thoughtful men listened 
to his words. As yet Cranmer assented to but little ; 
perhaps only two or three conclusions, and these spring- 
ing out of the burning question of the divorce, affected 
him. He recognized the supremacy of the Scripture 
and the usurpation of the papacy. Possibly he also saw 
the wrong and peril of enforced celibacy ; therefore he 
lightly esteemed vows unnatural in themselves or un- 
righteously demanded. He would have the Bible given 
to the people, and he questioned the right of the pope 
to have any jurisdiction within the realm and the Church 
of England. 

This latter point Cranmer stated to Gardiner and to 
30 



466 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Fox. He went farther. The pope had no power to dis- 
pense law. If the Scripture or the Church said that a man 
should not marry his deceased brother's wife, the pope 
had no right to say otherwise. For him to justify wrong- 
doing was an enormity unbearable and calamitous. Were 
the claim suffered, the pope might suspend the whole 
moral law, and the world would receive its order, not 
from Sinai, but from the Vatican. All the king had to 
do was to satisfy his conscience upon the invalidity of 
the first marriage and then marry again. In this opinion 
Cranmer agreed with his contemporaries generally that 
the question was with Henry a matter of conscience. 
There was, indeed, nothing to prevent Henry doing as 
William Rufus and John had done, and as Charles II. 
afterward did ; the weight of which fact ought to be ad- 
mitted in judging of this complicated subject. More- 
over, Cranmer may have dreaded, as most Englishmen 
did dread, the likelihood, unless by another alliance a 
male heir to the throne was born, of England falling into 
the hands of the Spanish kings and losing its identity in 
the great empire over which those kings ruled. When 
Henry died, only a girl, and she half Spanish, stood be- 
tween the island-throne and the most powerful and ag- 
gressive monarchy of the world. This fear influenced 
many to wish well to Henry's suit for a divorce ; they 
cared little for motives which later ages have supposed 
were all-powerful with the king. Only that England 
might be secured was all they wanted. And to Cran- 
mer's mind the reason why England was not secure and 
why the conscience of England's king was not at rest 
arose from the action of the pope in sanctioning a viola- 
tion of law. And if the pope had usurped jurisdiction 



HENR Y, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 467 

in this case, were not other assumptions also usurpa- 
tions ? Neither in the primitive Church nor in the older 
life of England had the pope been supreme. Every 
nation had once controlled its own ecclesiastical affairs, 
and therefore this whole matter was for the king, and 
not for the pope, to decide. 

Cranmer's opinion pleased Henry exceedingly. He 
had long learned the value of the papacy, and to give 
up the pope was not nearly so bad as to sacrifice Wol- 
sey. Cranmer was brought to court. He wrote a book 
to justify the principle he had advanced. He was taken 
in hand by the Boleyn faction, who cared less for the 
principle than for the application which they intended 
making of it. With Anne's father, now earl of Wilt- 
shire, he went on an embassy to the emperor and to the 
pope. The latter discerned his rising power, and made 
him penitentiary for England ; at home the king re- 
warded him with benefices and for the next two years 
employed him in several works of trust. At last, on 
the death of Warham, in 1533, he named him for the 
archbishopric of Canterbury. 

The pope not only assented to the appointment, but 
also confirmed to Cranmer the rights of the legatus 
natus held by his predecessors. This was actually 
sharpening the axe now put into Cranmer's hand. 
The consecration took place March 30 in St. Stephen's 
church, Westminster, and the officiants were John Lang- 
lands of Lincoln, John Voysey of Exeter and Henry 
Standish of St. Asaph. The new archbishop was obliged 
to take the oaths of obedience to the pope, but first in 
the chapter-house, then on the steps of the altar, and 
lastly when about to receive the pall, he solemnly de- 



468 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

clared that by any oaths he might be compelled to take 
" for form's sake " he did not intend to disable himself 
from reforming those things " which I shall think fit to 
be reformed in the Church of England." By this action 
Cranmer covered the retreat he intended making as soon 
as he had received the plenary authority of metropolitan. 

Henry understood his man. Inferior to Wolsey in 
statesmanship, perhaps in integrity, and certainly in 
firmness, he was superior to the cardinal in scholar- 
ship, personal piety and sympathy with the times. He 
was honest in his desire to help the Reformation — at 
least, to the extent of substituting the regal for the 
papal supremacy. In place of Clement he would have 
Henry, and would yield to the latter all that custom had 
long given the former. The king henceforth should be 
the head of the Church, with all the prerogatives and 
ascriptions of the papacy; to him only should the 
clergy give allegiance and of him only should they 
receive authority. Cranmer thus, like Wolsey, exalted 
Henry ; but, unlike Wolsey, Cranmer could be bent to 
serve according to the royal will. He is not the only 
good man who, absorbed in the ulterior project of prin- 
ciple, has been used in the mean time to further motives 
in themselves bad. 

Two months after the consecration of Cranmer he 
proceeded, as metropolitan of England and having 
plenary jurisdiction therein, to hold a court for the 
settlement of the king's matter. With him was asso- 
ciated the bishop of Lincoln, and the king was repre- 
sented by Gardiner of Winchester and a number of 
learned doctors of the law. The lady Catherine was 
summoned, but did not appear. After argument the 



HENR Y, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 469 

archbishop solemnly pronounced that the pope had no 
power to license such marriages, and that the marriage 
of Henry and Catherine was null and void, and had 
been null and void from the first This sentence re- 
moved the necessity for a divorce, and, though it placed 
Catherine and her daughter, Mary, in an unfortunate 
position, it completely satisfied Henry. He had, in- 
deed, anticipated it, and some months earlier had mar- 
ried Anne. The pope immediately annulled Cranmer's 
sentence and excommunicated Henry and Anne; some 
of the clergy compared the king to Ahab and his wife 
to Jezebel, and not a few of the people pitied the im- 
prisoned princess and uttered their scorn of the Boleyn 
faction. No one suffered for their abuse. Like all the 
Tudor princes, Henry was sensitive of public opinion ; 
he allowed the people their " say," but he kept Anne 
and proclaimed her queen. 

The coronation was of extraordinary splendor. Ban- 
quets, processions, pageants, salutes and gifts marked 
the loyalty of London : " neuer was lyke in any tyme 
nyghe to our rememberaunce." On Whitsunday, and in 
the abbey of Westminster, the ceremony was performed. 
The two archbishops, five bishops and ten or twelve 
abbots, arrayed in pontificals, received the queen, ap- 
parelled in a robe of purple velvet and accompanied by 
gentlewomen in robes and gowns of scarlet. Before the 
high altar the archbishop of Canterbury set the crown 
upon her head ; after which, Te Deum was sung, mass 
was celebrated, and the assembly adjourned to the hall 
to keep the great feast. Anne Boleyn had no cause to 
complain of the glory which that day shone upon her. 
She had waited, and the fulness of pomp testified to 



470 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

her success. The following September, Cranmer bap- 
tized her daughter, the princess Elizabeth. 

The break with Rome was now certain. In 1534 the 
papal authority in England was abolished, the payment 
of first-fruits to the pope was forbidden, and the king 
was recognized as the supreme head on earth of the 
national Church. Many of the powers formerly exer- 
cised by the pope now devolved upon Cranmer. He 
granted bulls and dispensations, confirmed and conse- 
crated bishops, made visitations throughout the province 
and licensed preachers. None except those allowed by 
him might preach, and they were specially charged to 
speak against the papal claims, but not against or for 
such doctrines as purgatory, celibacy or invocation of 
saints. In the year of his consecration Cranmer had 
consented to the burning of two men who denied tran- 
substantiation. In February, 1535, he solemnly adjured 
the pope and declared his sole allegiance to the king ; 
all the bishops but one followed his example. The 
clergy assented to the acts of their spiritual lords, thus 
furnishing something of a test of the slight hold which 
the papacy had upon their affections. Two men, how- 
ever, would not take the oath of the royal supremacy. 
Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More objected, and, 
though Cranmer endeavored to save them, they were 
promptly beheaded. 

And now the work of monastic dissolution begun by 
Wolsey went on swiftly. Cromwell was now vicar-gen- 
eral and held powers of visitation both of abbeys and of 
bishoprics. He was one of uncommon financial acumen, 
with a considerable knowledge of human nature. The 
king needed money for himself and lands to reward his 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 47 1 

courtiers : Cromwell knew where and how both could 
be obtained. Acts of Parliament were passed enabling 
the Crown to possess and to hold the estates of the mon- 
asteries. Abbeys and convents were invited to surrender 
their possessions ; some did, and such as refused were 
inspected by commissioners for the ostensible purpose 
of seeing if the discipline were maintained. The most 
reckless charges and the blackest crimes were brought 
up against the monks, who were powerless in the pres- 
ence of men who wanted their houses and lands. Where 
this infamous proceeding was likely to fail other meas- 
ures were taken ; as, for instance, with the abbey of 
Glastonbury. The aged abbot, Richard Whiting, un- 
blemished in character, princely in hospitality and wise 
in authority, was desired to relinquish his society. He 
declined, and was therefore tried and condemned for high 
treason. Next day, without being allowed to take leave 
of his brethren, he was dragged on a hurdle to a hill 
overlooking his monastery, and there hanged and quar- 
tered. This was the last abbot of the famous house of 
Avalon, associated by legend with Prince Arthur, Joseph 
of Arimathea and the Holy Grail. The splendid church 
— as long as Canterbury cathedral — was dismantled, and 
the estates passed into the king's hands. Others suffered 
after the same fashion ; and when all was done, there 
had perished six hundred and forty-five religious houses, 
ninety colleges, twenty-three hundred and seventy-four 
chantries and free chapels, and one hundred and ten hos- 
pitals. The greater part of the immense wealth confis- 
cated went to the king and his lords ; little, if any, went to 
the building or endowing of churches, to educational or 
missionary purposes, or even to the improvement of the 



472 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

roads and the defences of the country. In vain did 
Cranmer and others seek to save some of the buildings 
and endowments for religious or scholastic purposes : 
the vicar-general had no sentiment save for the royal 
exchequer ; and the remorseless vandalism went on. A 
few short years, and monachism had utterly perished out 
of the land. 

The people were reminded that this wholesale robbery 
was for religion's sake ; the monks were idolaters, and 
in their houses every vileness abounded. But the peo- 
ple knew otherwise. They lived near to the abbeys and 
saw the actual lives of the men therein ; they saw, too, 
the growth of a plebeian aristocracy enriched out of the 
spoils of the abbeys. The sham was therefore open to 
them, and soon the storm broke. Nearly the whole of 
Northern England revolted. Forty thousand' Yorkshire- 
men marched toward London with the avowed purpose 
of restoring the monks to their homes and of remov- 
ing such counsellors as Cromwell from the king. They 
called their expedition " The Pilgrimage of Grace." It 
failed, and Cromwell became stronger than ever. 

About this time Hugh Latimer becomes conspicuous. 
The son of a Leicestershire yeoman, and a member of 
the University of Cambridge, he combined in his charac- 
ter a practical, sturdy sense and considerable scholar- 
ship. Pie was of nearly the same age as Cranmer, and, 
like Cranmer, he had strongly advocated the king's cause 
against Catherine. Under the influence of Thomas Bil- 
ney, who in 1 53 1 was burnt at Norwich for heresy, he 
gave up his strong mediaeval proclivities and accepted 
the doctrines of the Reformers. His ability as a preacher 
was great, though few cared for the blunt, outspoken 



HENR V, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 47 3 

manner with which he rebuked wrong-doing and advo- 
cated his views. Wolsey gave him permission to preach 
as he liked, and Cranmer became his warm friend. In 

1535 he was made bishop of the distant and neglected 
diocese of Worcester, and at once proceeded to make 
such changes there as he thought necessary. 

The bishops had now formed themselves into two par- 
ties, both agreeing with the abolition of the papal suprem- 
acy, but differing as to the necessity of further reforma- 
tion. At the head of the one party was Cranmer ; at the 
head of the other, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Some 
communication had already been held with the Saxon 
Reformers, but Henry had little sympathy with men who 
would touch the doctrinal structure of the old faith. In 

1536 the southern convocation set forth certain articles 
"to stablyshe Christen quietnes and unitie amonge us, 
and to avoyde contentious opinions," but there is little in 
them of accordance with the Reformed principles. They 
were ten in number, and the following year were supple- 
mented by a similar document, entitled the " Institution 
of a Christian Man." 

The same year, 1536, Henry had further matrimonial 
trouble. No male heir had come of the marriage with 
Anne Boleyn ; England was as badly off as ever. Two 
other motives had also entered the king's heart : he had 
become jealous of Anne, and he had fallen in love with 
another woman. Probably Anne had been indiscreet, 
but that she sinned as Henry supposed is generally dis- 
allowed. Innocence, however, went for nothing : she 
was doomed to suffer the same indignity that for her sake 
had been put upon Catherine of Arragon. To save her- 
self from death by burning, she confessed a precontract 



474 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

of marriage ; Henry also admitted that he had been 
familiar with her elder sister before his alliance with 
Anne ; whereupon, in strict conformity to law, Cranmer 
promptly and obediently pronounced " that the marriage 
between Henry and Anne was null and void, and always 
had been so." The unfortunate queen had none to pity 
her. For some months before her fall she had been 
under the benign influence of Latimer, and had sobered 
down into the position of one realizing great responsibil- 
ity. The charge of the king came upon her with crushing 
force, but she never forgot her womanhood or lost her 
dignity. She asked the king for justice, but not for 
mercy. So she went to death at high noon on Friday, 
May 19 ; and when the lieutenant of the Tower told her 
the pain would be little, it was so subtile, she laughed, 
and, putting her hands around her neck, she said, " I 
have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have 
a little neck." The headsman came from Calais, for the 
English were not expert at such things, and Anne was 
the first English queen or princess sent to the scaffold. 
One blow ended it all. That night, it is believed, her 
friends took her remains secretly away and buried them 
in an Essex churchyard. Her father retained his posses- 
sions. Cold and hard, he was never heard to express a 
regret at the fate of his beautiful daughter. Henry con- 
soled himself by getting married to Jane Seymour next 
morning. Later, when the earl of Wiltshire died, he set 
aside Cranmer's sentence and claimed the estates which 
would have fallen to his murdered wife. His two 
daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, legally in a peculiar 
position, were some time later by an act of Parliament 
set right. One was brought up under strong Spanish 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 47$ 

and Roman influence ; the other, under the care of Cran- 
mer. In life and in religion they were divided, but now 
in the one tomb, side by side, the daughter of Catherine 
of Arragon and the daughter of Anne Boleyn repose in 
peace. 

The clergy followed their royal master's example and 
took unto themselves wives. In 1532, Cranmer had mar- 
ried Anne, the niece of the famous Andreas Osiander; but 
in 1539 tne Parliament passed an act annulling the mar- 
riages of ecclesiastics. The Lutherans had held a con- 
ference with some divines commissioned by Henry, in 
hopes of uniting the several Reformed schools in one 
Church, but the king was too conservative. New arti- 
cles were drawn up which decidedly reiterated the 
most obnoxious doctrines of the mediaeval Church and 
obtained the title of the " Bloody Statute of the Six 
Articles." Transubstantiation was specially insisted 
upon; also, clerical celibacy. Cranmer quietly and 
prudently sent his wife back to Germany, where she 
remained till more auspicious times. Other clergymen, 
dreading the severe penalties of disobedience, did like- 
wise. One poor priest, John Foster by name, wrote a 
letter to Cromwell confessing how ill he had understood 
the word of God when he had married a wife, and com- 
plimenting the king's grace upon his more erudite judg- 
ment. He, indeed, wished the king had read the Scrip- 
tures otherwise and hints at the desolation of an unmar- 
ried priest, but as soon as he heard the royal order, he 
says, " I sentt the woman to her frendys iii score mylys 
from me, and spedely and with all celeryte I have resort- 
ed hether to desyre the King's Hyghtnes of hys favor 
and absolucyon for my amysce doing." Verily, if John 



47^ READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Foster represented his brethren, the clergy had a becom- 
ing reverence for the royal supremacy. 

In 1537, Nicholas Ridley, one of the most courtly and 
accomplished of scholars, became chaplain to Archbishop 
Cranmer ; three years later he was made a royal chaplain. 
Of a good Northumberland family, born in 1500, he had 
been educated at Cambridge, where he had given much 
attention to the study of divinity. He had even learned 
to repeat in Greek, without book, almost all the Epistles 
of the New Testament. His drift was strongly to the 
Reformed party, and from him Cranmer obtained that 
view of the holy communion which he afterward im- 
pressed upon the English formularies. Indeed, Ridley 
seems to have helped much to the moulding and develop- 
ment of the archbishop's mind, furthering it in a Protest- 
ant direction and giving it a consistency never after this 
sacrificed. Whatever may have been Cranmer's faults 
— and they are mostly covered by the word "weak- 
ness" — he was honest and earnest in his purpose of 
reformation. His master had gone far enough ; the 
gentle Ridley and the thoroughgoing Latimer united 
with the primate in pressing on to a far-distant end. 
Latimer knew nothing of timidity ; Ridley, nothing of 
that brave, dauntless courage in which lay Latimer's 
greatness. As soon as the act of the six articles .of 
1539 became law Latimer resigned his bishopric: he 
would assent to no device which sanctioned transub- 
stantiation, celibacy or auricular confession. He was 
more or less persecuted till Henry died, but, notwith- 
standing imprisonment in the Tower, he held out. Had 
Cranmer been as uncompromising and as indiscreet, he 
would have had the same glory of heroism, but he 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 477 

would have lost his power for good, and the Reforma- 
tion in England might never have been. 

One of the most important steps in Cranmer's policy 
was the popular distribution of the sacred Scriptures. 
Surely, said he, " to the reading of the Scripture none 
can be enemy but that either be so sick that they love 
not to hear of any medicine, or else that be so ignorant 
that they know not Scripture to be the most healthful 
medicine." It is well, however, to guard against the 
supposition that the common people thronged to the 
churches to hear the Scriptures read in the mother- 
tongue, or that by stealth ploughmen and shepherds 
perused the New Testament under hedges and smiths 
and carpenters in the corners of their shops. Such was 
not the tendency of the masses nor the character of the 
age. Bible-reading began, not with the lower classes or 
with the laity, but with the scholars and the clergy of 
the universities. Nearly all the leaders of the Reforma- 
tion were ecclesiastics, but for many a day the people 
neither heard the word gladly nor desired to know about 
the new faith. They clung tenaciously to the older form, 
and saw in the destruction of abbeys and priories and in 
the change of doctrines nothing but shame to the country 
and inconvenience to themselves. Nor did the men who 
obtained the lands of the monks care for religion : they 
favored only that which kept them in their possession. 
The country had to be educated to discern in the Bible the 
final and infallible authority ; then would the people know 
for themselves the necessity and the justice of the work 
that had been done for them. But when Tyndale issued 
his translation, a fierce opposition broke out — not so much 
from a desire to prevent the people from becoming ac- 



478 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

quainted with the Bible as from the nature of the version. 
He was both bitter in spirit and coarse in expression, 
and, having gone to the extremity of the continental 
school of reform, he systematically avoided in his ren- 
derings the use of ecclesiastical words. He translated 
," congregation " instead of " church," " washing " instead 
of " baptism," " favour " instead of " grace," " elder " or 
" senior " instead of " priest," and so on. There seemed 
to be a desire to undermine the attachment of the people 
to the Church and a wish to detach her doctrines from 
their foundation of Scripture proof. Some of his quaint 
translations are, Genesis xxxix. 2 : " And the Lord was 
with Joseph, and he was a luckie fellow;" Matthew 
xxvi. 30 : " When they had said grace ;" Matthew iv. 
24 : " Holden of divers diseases and gripinges." Cover- 
dale's version, published in 1535, met with more favor, 
and by the king's command was laid in the choir of 
every church " for every man that will look to and read 
therein." But neither was this entirely satisfactory, 
therefore the translation known as the " Great Bible " 
was made under the archbishop's supervision by the 
most learned of the English bishops and divines. It 
was published in 1539, and remained the authorized 
version of the Church of England till the " Bishops' 
Bible" came out, in 1568. An anticipation may be 
made. The " Bishops' Bible " was intended to take the 
place of the popular " Geneva," a Puritan production 
with marginal notes and comments in which were curi- 
ously mingled things useful and things questionable. 
For example, one of these notes defined bishops and 
archbishops to be " apocalyptic locusts " — a phrase more 
likely to tickle the ears of the advocates of ministerial 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 479 

parity than to please the adherents of episcopacy. The 
" Geneva," however, was the first version that used Ro- 
man type instead of black letter, divided the text into 
verses, omitted the Apocrypha, and printed in italics 
words not in the original. All these translations were 
superseded by the "Authorized Version " of 161 1, which 
has won the hearts of the English-speaking peoples 
of the world, and has done so much to beautify and 
to strengthen the English language. 

The Bible in the hands of the people helped much 
to the changes desired by Cranmer. In 1 541 he began 
the supervision of the service-books and advocated the 
use of homilies for the instruction both of " ignorant 
preachers " and of their flocks. In 1544 he put forth in 
English a litany the same in substance with the present 
one. But the king held back. Cranmer never lost his 
hold upon the boisterous and impetuous monarch, but 
of further reformation Henry would hear nothing. Be- 
yond rejecting the papacy, abolishing monachism, dis- 
tributing the Scriptures and laying down the principle 
of service in the native tongue, the Church of England 
remained till the death of Henry the same as of old. 

There is little to show that in the latter years of his 
reign the king lost any of his early popularity. Posterity 
and Rome have made the most of his matrimonial mis- 
fortunes, but his contemporaries did not judge him so 
harshly. He retained to the last the affections of his 
subjects, though he struck as swiftly and as remorse- 
lessly as ever. There was no hesitation regarding de- 
niers of the regal supremacy : Parliament and convo- 
cation said the death of such was needed. Parties, too, 
played with the king as the Boleyn faction had done, and 



480 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

as for some time after the Seymour circle continued to 
do. Evil advisers had the royal ear and led Henry to do 
things which under other influences he might not have 
done. When, October 12, 1537, Edward was born, both 
the king and England were wild with joy ; but a fort- 
night later, to Henry's inexpressible grief, the queen 
died. He had some difficulty in getting another wife, 
but Cromwell recommended to him a plain Dutch wo- 
man, Anne of Cleves, and even induced the king to 
marry her by proxy before seeing her. When Henry 
did see her, his fury broke out. She was discreet, and 
accepted a divorce and a pension. Cromwell went to 
the block. The next year Henry, now fifty-two years 
of age, was attracted by the charms of the pretty though 
diminutive Catherine Howard, granddaughter of that 
duke of Norfolk who was uncle of Anne Boleyn. She 
was about nineteen years old, and was designed to serve 
those same family purposes which her unfortunate pred- 
ecessor and relative had done. The king appeared to 
love her passionately ; then he heard of some indiscre- 
tions committed before marriage, and, apparently with 
her father and Cranmer's approval, after a wedded life of 
nineteen months, he sent her to death. The next year 
he found a widow, Catherine Parr, willing to accept his 
hand; she was judicious, and survived her lord. 

January 28, 1547, the great Tudor king passed away, 
and the crown of England fell to a sickly lad of nine 
summers. Cranmer, who had baptized him, performed 
the coronation on Shrove Tuesday, February 20. For 
the first time in English history the king was not pre- 
sented for election, but was simply declared to be the 
" rightful and undoubted inheritor." The ancient cere- 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 48 1 

mony of anointing was performed with scrupulous care; 
for though Cranmer told the king that it was but a form, 
yet " My Lord of Canterbury, kneeling on his knees and 
the king lying prostrate on the altar, anointed his back." 
Then he placed the diadem on his brow and the sceptre 
in his hand, and proclaimed him Edward VI. of England. 
The boy-king was precocious and pious. His moth- 
er's brother, the duke of Somerset, became protector 
during the king's minority. He desired to match his 
daughter, Lady Jane Seymour, with the king, but the 
youthful monarch revolted at the idea of forming an 
alliance with a kinswoman and a subject. The queen- 
dowager, Catherine Parr, for whom Edward had a tender 
affection, held the project of uniting him with Lady Jane 
Grey. Henry VIII. had in vain sought to secure for his 
son the hand of Mary queen of Scots, nor were the 
determined attempts made after his death toward an 
alliance of the little cousins more successful. The pro- 
tector agreed with Cranmer, though from very different 
motives, in the work of the Reformation. The influence 
of both over the king was great — the one in matters of 
the State, and the other in affairs of the Church. Ed- 
ward learned what his father had. never learned — to obey 
ministers — and, though he threw himself heart and soul 
into the new religious movement and was impatient for 
its advancement, the real success was due to the ability, 
sagacity and perseverance of Cranmer. In every step 
that was taken on behalf of Protestantism during the 
six years of Edward's reign Cranmer was the moving 
spirit. His was the hand that guided the Church through 
those days of trouble ; his was the mind that devised the 
course and controlled the actions of the more hasty and 
31 



482 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the less judicious of his party. The opposition to Prot- 
estantism was now well defined and vigorous and the 
difficulties became greater every day, but the archbishop 
moved on with persistency and wisdom. A serious obsta- 
cle in his way was the ignorance of the clergy. When 
Bishop Hooper, in 1550, proceeded to examine three hun- 
dred and eleven of the clergy of the diocese of Gloucester, 
he found one hundred and sixty-eight of them unable 
to repeat the ten commandments, and thirty- one of that 
number further unable to state in what part of the Scrip- 
tures they were to be found ; there were forty who could 
not tell where the Lord's Prayer was written, and thirty- 
one of this number ignorant who was its author. Cran- 
mer once asked a priest for the name of the father of 
King David ; he pleaded forgetfulness, but was also 
unable to remember who was Solomon's father. This 
was not exceptional. Tyndale declares that " a great 
part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing 
and say and patter all day with the lips only that which 
the heart understandeth not." A remedy for this igno- 
rance was attempted in the book of homilies which 
was published in 1547. It consisted of twelve ser- 
mons on such subjects as the reading of Holy Scrip- 
ture, the true and lively faith and good works. Three, 
at least, were written by the archbishop himself. Visi- 
tations were held throughout the country by the bish- 
ops, and the most searching inquiry was made into the 
sins and the shortcomings of the clergy. The reminis- 
cences of the old worship were to be swept clean out. 
The royal injunctions of 1547 directed that the priests 
should "take away, utterly extinct and destroy all shrines, 
covering of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles or 



HENRY. WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 483 

rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monu- 
ments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and 
superstition ; so that there remain no memory of the 
same in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere within their 
churches or houses." The altars were also ordered to 
be removed and plain honest tables set up instead. The 
great means used, however, for reaching the multitude 
was the apostolic plan of preaching. Sadly indeed had 
this duty been neglected ; as Latimer said, " when the 
devil gets influence in a church, up go candles and down 
goes preaching." By this weapon the first ministers of 
the gospel won the world for Christ, and the Reformers 
fully proved its great and almost invincible power. At 
St. Paul's Cross the best preachers of the Reformed 
Church proclaimed their glad message to thronging 
thousands. The truth found its way to their hearts ; 
and when once an indiscreet preacher ventured to ad- 
vocate praying for the dead and to denounce Ridley — 
now made bishop of London — he barely escaped with 
his life. But far away in remote country-places the 
people still clung to the darkness. In Devonshire they 
openly demanded the mass, and broke out into a rebel- 
lion which was with difficulty suppressed. 

Next to the Bible in English and to preaching, the 
most powerful agency of the Reformation in England 
was the Book of Common Prayer. Hitherto the ser- 
vices had been in Latin ; now they were to be rendered 
in the common tongue. Hitherto the clergy had wor- 
shipped for the people, as they still do in the Roman 
and in most Protestant denominations ; now the people 
were called up into the chancel to worship for themselves. 
A committee of representative divines, with Cranmer 



484 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

at their head, was appointed to prepare from the ancient 
service-books a new liturgy. This liturgy — the First 
Book of Edward VI. — was published and ordered to 
be used in 1549. It was an ingenious and an admira- 
ble compilation, sparkling with spiritual and literary 
glories, and in every sense superior to any service-book 
the Christian Church had ever known. But it retained 
certain ceremonies and expressions which were con- 
sidered objectionable, such as the terms " mass " and 
" altar," the reservation of the sacramental elements, 
prayers for the dead, exorcism and chrism in baptism 
and anointing in the visitation of the sick. A new com- 
mittee, with the same president, was therefore appointed 
to revise the book and bring it more into harmony with 
Protestant principles. The revision was set forth in 1552, 
and from that date the Second Book of Edward VI. 
became the authorized liturgy of England. With the 
exception of some few improvements in the reigns of 
Queen Elizabeth and Charles II., the book has remained 
substantially the same from that day to this. 

In 1553. were published the "Articles of Religion." 
There were forty-one, but, reduced in 1571 to thirty- 
nine, ever since they have remained unchanged both 
in number and in expression. In these articles the ref- 
ormation of the Church of England may be said to have 
been completed. Here appeared the gems of truth for 
which her bravest and her best sons fought and died, 
shining with lustrous beauty and precious as must ever 
be jewels which are brought from the heavenly quarry. 
Crowned with this crown of pure faith, she may indeed be 
called the queen of the churches of Christendom. Here 
truth blends with the spirit of conservatism. Not one 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 485 

iota of primitive, or even mediaeval, doctrine shall be 
given up if it be true ; but the axe is laid at the root 
of the tree of error in the famous declaration, " Holy 
Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation." 
Justification is determined to be through faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ alone ; free will, works of superero- 
gation and sinless perfection on earth are disallowed. 
Purgatory, the worship of saints, angels and relics, in- 
dulgences, penance and extreme unction, are condemned. 
General councils — which many regard as the panacea 
for all the Church's woes — are mentioned, but only to 
affirm that they may err and have erred. The Church 
of Rome is solemnly pronounced to have erred not only 
in her living and her manner of ceremonies, but also in 
matters of faith. In the question of soteriology the ar- 
ticles favor the Augustinian doctrine of predestination 
and election. Augustus Toplady, in his Historic Proof 
of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, 
says, " We must admit either that Cranmer was as abso- 
lute a predestinarian as Calvin himself, or charge the 
venerable archbishop with such extreme dissimulation 
and hypocrisy as are utterly incompatible with common 
honesty." The nineteenth article declares the Church 
visible to be a congregation of faithful men " in the which 
the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments 
be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all 
those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." 
Cranmer and his fellow-laborers were on terms of cor- 
dial intimacy and good-will with the continental Re- 
formed churches, though they were organized on other 
than the ancient model. The archbishop himself invited 
John a Lasco, Melanchthon, Albert Hardenberg and 



486 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Martin Bucer to come to England and assist in the 
English Reformation; and when many of the French 
Protestants fled to Kent, they were allowed to hold 
their services in the crypt of Canterbury cathedral — 
a privilege which their descendants still enjoy. It is 
true both of the articles and of the Prayer-book that, 
while they bear the impress of Archbishop Cranmer, 
they also owe something to Christians of commu- 
nions differing widely from one another. 

Cranmer's hand is also to be discerned in the ordinal. 
The preface, written by himself, is temperate and inof- 
fensive. It simply asserts the historic fact of the three 
orders in the ministry, and declares that, so far as the 
Church of England is concerned, none shall officiate 
within her borders who has not received episcopal 
ordination. Such a decree was not intended to imply 
any defect in, or condemnation of, those churches which 
are differently organized. It is, however, in his famous 
work on the Lord's Supper that we have the best dis- 
play of his vast intellectual powers. Here we discern 
the soundest scriptural criticism, the fullest knowledge 
of the patristic and scholastic writings — second, indeed, 
only to that of Bishop Jewel — and the most uncompro- 
mising and inexorable logic. It dealt with the great 
question of the day, for, while in Germany the battle 
of the Reformation was fought out on the question of 
justification, in England it centred itself almost entire- 
ly upon the doctrine of the Real Presence. How was 
Christ present in the elements of the holy communion ? 
What did he mean when in the institution of that sacra- 
ment he said, speaking of the bread, " This is my body," 
and of the wine, " This is my blood " ? The Romish 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 487 

doctrine was, and had been more or less since the ninth 
century, that the words were to be taken literally. The 
English Reformers reiterated the words of JElfric, writ- 
ten at the beginning of the eleventh century : u The 
housel is Christ's body — not bodily, but spiritually ; 
not the body in which he suffered, but the body about 
which he spake when he blessed bread and wine for 
housel." 

Cranmer divides his work into five books, of which 
the first treats of the sacrament generally ; the second, of 
transubstantiation ; the third, of the presence of Christ; 
the fourth, of the eating and drinking ; and the fifth, of 
the oblation and sacrifice of Christ. He invites discus- 
sion. " What hurt, I pray you," says he, " can gold 
catch in the fire, or truth with discussing ? Lies only 
fear discussing. The devil hateth the light because he 
hath been a liar from the beginning and is loth that his 
lies should come to light and trial. And all hypocrites 
and papists be of a like sort afraid that their doctrine 
should come to discussing, whereby it may evidently 
appear that they be endued with the spirit of error and 
lying." 

In the course of the work many awkward dilemmas 
are brought out — such, for example, as this : " If Judas 
received Christ with the bread, as you say, and the devil 
entered with the bread, as St. John saith, then was the 
devil and Christ in Judas both at once. And then how 
they agreed I marvel ; for St. Paul saith that Christ and 
Belial cannot agree." The following has a bearing upon 
the whole question : " It is not a sufficient proof in Scrip- 
ture to say, ' God doth it because he can do it,' for he 
can do many things which he neither doth nor will do. 



488 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

He could have sent more than twelve legions of angels 
to deliver Christ from the wicked Jews, and yet he would 
not do it. He could have created the world and all 
things therein in one moment of time, and yet his pleas- 
ure was to do it in six days." Nor may a crucial passage 
such as this be omitted : " If Christ had never ordained 
the sacrament, yet should we have eaten his flesh and 
drunken his blood, and have had thereby everlasting 
life, as all the faithful did before the sacrament was or- 
dained, and do daily when they receive not the sacra- 
ment." Or this : " The greatest blasphemy and injury 
that can be against Christ, and yet universally used 
through the popish kingdom, is this — that the priests 
make their mass a sacrifice propitiatory to remit the sins 
as well of themselves as of others, both quick and dead, 
to whom they list to apply the same. Thus, under pre- 
tence of holiness, the papistical priests have taken upon 
them to be Christ's successors, and to make such an 
oblation and sacrifice as never creature made but Christ 
alone ; neither he made the same any more times than 
once, and that was by his death upon the cross." It is 
not contended that Cranmer always held views such as 
these. He once undoubtedly taught the doctrine of the 
real objective presence ; he then upheld consubstantia- 
tion, and from that advanced to the position maintained 
in his book, and in which he died. In the expression 
of these sacramental views Ridley had a part. 

The reign of Edward soon came to an end. A few 
short years, and the bright morn of promise was dark- 
ened with heavy clouds. But no clouds could put back 
the hand of time. The Reformation had been begun in 
England ; the people had tasted the sweets of spiritual 



HENR Y, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 489 

freedom, and no persecution, repression or inquisition 
could undo what had been done. The seed had been 
sown ; and if it were destined that it should be watered 
with the blood of many martyrs, it was also destined 
that it should take deep hold and in strength and beauty 
bear fruit such as should grow in no other land or among 
no other race. There were doubtless heavy hearts around 
the death-bed of the young king. Men trembled when 
they thought of v/hat the future might bring forth. " O 
my Lord God," cried the dying prince, " defend this thy 
realm and protect it from popery and maintain the true 
religion and pure worship of thy name." A dreadful 
storm swept over the country. Trees were uprooted; 
darkness, thunder, wind and flood such as few remem- 
bered seemed to portend terrible evil ; and ere long 
Death cast his shadow upon the tender and simple-hearted 
boy — blessed prelude to an eternal rest and a heavenly 
crown. "We have lost our good king," laments John 
Bradford, and Protestant Switzerland and Saxony wept 
with bereaved and unhappy England. 

And for a time it seemed that there was good cause for 
weeping. The new queen, indeed, permitted Cranmer to 
read over the king the burial-service according to the 
Book of Common Prayer, but the anticipations of the 
Reformers were soon realized. Into prison went Brad- 
ford, Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, and many another witness 
of the faith. Within a month of the death of Edward 
the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey upon the throne 
was crushed, and Mary held all power. She too was 
pious and bigoted, but on her mother's side and in her 
mother's religion. Around her clustered the most violent 
partisans of the old school. Cranmer soon found that 



490 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

he could expect no mercy. His position as primate of 
all England and archbishop in the second see of West- 
ern Christendom did not save him. He had defied the 
papal authorities, declared the nullity of the marriage of 
Henry and Catherine, given up estates to the Crown and 
done all he could to further the Reformation. His influ- 
ence over the king had not been so great as that of the 
far abler Wolsey or of the cunning Cromwell, but it had 
been more lasting. The sovereign who read every man's 
mind that he cared to read knew the sincerity and faith- 
fulness as well as the timidity of Cranmer. When Henry 
lay dying, he would see no divine but Cranmer ; and 
when the archbishop pointed him to Christ, the speech- 
less monarch wrung his faithful friend's hand and died. 
But this very attachment only still more embittered 
Mary against him. 

Early in August, Cranmer was commanded to keep his 
house at Lambeth, and about the middle of the following 
month he was committed to the Tower. Here, with Rid- 
ley and Latimer, he remained until March, 1554, when, 
with them, he was removed to Oxford, to dispute with the 
doctors and the divines. In April he was examined, con- 
demned and excommunicated, then sent to the common 
jail. As yet no blood had been shed for religion's sake ; 
perhaps Mary was reluctant to proceed to that extreme, 
and the ecclesiastical authorities were content to try the 
effect of imprisonment, disputations and the spiritual 
weapon of excommunication. But when, in July, Mary 
married the cruel and cold Philip of Spain, grand-nephew 
of Catherine of Arragon, the " secular arm " began to 
move more vigorously. The Jesuit Carranza was placed 
in charge of the queen's conscience, and soon the fires 



HENRY, WOLSEY AND CRANMER. 49 1 

were kindled. In the spring of 1555, Rogers at Smith- 
field, Saunders at Coventry, Hooper at Gloucester, Taylor 
at Hadleigh, and Farrer at Carmarthen died at the stake ; 
the holy John Bradford suffered at Smithfield in July, 
and in October brave Latimer and gentle Ridley were 
burnt in the streets at Oxford. Ere long it may be truly 
said the land was defiled with blood. And when, with 
courtly pomp and haughty pride, the papal legate in 
November, 1555, declared England forgiven and at peace 
and unity with the holy see, if the sufferings of the 
martyrs went for anything, surely the atonement was 
well wrought and well deserved. 

In the mean time, Cranmer remained in prison ; before 
he should suffer, his enemies had determined to cover 
him with shame. A braver man than he was might well 
have flinched in the hour of trial. Naturally timid, the 
indignities he had already suffered, the loneliness of his 
position and the horrors of his prison-life had their effect 
upon him ; so that he learned to dread the fiery death. 
There was none of Latimer's dauntless spirit, nor yet of 
Bradford's exultant joy ; and when life was offered him, 
he grasped eagerly for this last hope. We may blush 
for his weakness, but we should also consider his pecu- 
liar temperament, his surroundings in the Bocardo and 
the beguilements of his persecutors. In their devices to 
make an unhappy old man give the lie to his life they 
set before him a torturing death and the memory of more 
than two years' imprisonment. They gave him mock- 
trials ; they cited him to appear in Rome while they 
still kept fast his prison doors ; six times he was induced 
to write and to sign submissions to the pope and recan- 
tations of his heresies. The price offered was life, but 



492 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Spanish malice and Roman malignity could not spare 
such as he ; and so, in spite of their promises and of 
what he had done, they proceeded in February, 1556, to 
degrade him from his episcopal dignity and his minis- 
terial office. Then Cranmer pronounced his solemn ap- 
peal from the pope to the next general council, but in 
vain. He was condemned to die, and the twenty-first 
day of March was appointed for the time of his exe- 
cution. 

On the morning of that day — it was a foul and a rainy 
day, says Foxe — the archbishop, clad in a bare and 
ragged gown, with an old square cap, was led through 
a great assembly of spectators to St. Mary's church, 
there to hear a sermon. It was expected that he would 
confirm his recantations, and therefore he was suffered 
to address the congregation, but, to the astonishment of 
all and to the confusion of many, he boldly, clearly and 
uncompromisingly declared his repudiation of Rome and 
the pope and his adherence to the principles of the Ref- 
ormation. " I renounce and refuse," said he, " as things 
written with my hand contrary to the truth which I 
thought in my heart, and written for fear of death and 
to save my life, if it might be." They who had looked 
for a signal triumph now fretted and fumed and gnashed 
their teeth in rage. They insulted, threatened and mal- 
treated him, and with furious hatred and haste hurried 
him from the church to the place of execution. There, 
on the very spot where, six months before, Latimer and 
Ridley were burned, they chained him to the stake and 
heaped the fagots around him. Just twenty-one years 
had passed since he was consecrated to the see of Can- 
terbury; now, bareheaded and barefooted, in a long 



HENR Y, WOLSE Y AND CRANMER. 493 

coarse garment, he stood waiting for the end. The fire 
was kindled, and in the flames the old man thrust 
the hand that had signed the recantations, exclaiming, 
" That unworthy hand — that unworthy hand !" There 
was no more flinching, no more fear. From amid the 
darkening smoke and the lurid flames, above the crack- 
ling of the fagots and the tumult of the crowd, men 
heard him cry again and again, " Lord Jesus, receive my 
spirit !" Ere long a heap of ashes, a charred stake and 
a chain alone remained. Another witness had joined 
the noble army of martyrs. The streets were deserted, 
the rain fell, a painful silence prevailed. 

There were those in the Middle Ages who thought 
no greater martyr ever died than Thomas a Becket ; in 
later times the palm has by some been given to William 
Laud ; but in the usefulness of his life and the grandeur 
of his death Thomas Cranmer is the peer of either. He 
is deserving of a place not far from the learned Lanfranc 
and the saintly Anselm — worthy of being numbered 
amongst the worthiest of the prelates who have sat in 
the patriarchal chair of St. Augustine. He had faults ; 
but when all that can be said against him is said, he still 
remains a noble character. The people of Oxford have 
in St. Giles's Street a stately reminder of the great arch- 
bishop, but a monument more enduring and more pre- 
cious than that is in the hand of every churchman. The 
Book of Common Prayer, the homilies and the Thirty- 
nine Articles are an undying memorial of Cranmer. 
Upon them is the impress of his soul ; for the prin- 
ciples in them enunciated he both wrought and died. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

tftirfjartr poofter. 

The reign of Elizabeth is the most glorious in English 
history. Its romantic charm seems to gather richness 
with the flow of time, even to the exclusion of all other 
periods. The queen herself had graces and accomplish- 
ments which made her dear to the people, and around 
her was a galaxy of geniuses who have scarcely been 
equalled either for bravery and endurance or for creative 
force, massive learning and originality of idea and expres- 
sion. Her policy was guided and furthered by such 
masters of state-craft as Cecil, Walsingham, Sir Nicholas 
Bacon and Sir Christopher Hatton ; they made her throne 
secure and her name great in Europe. Upon the seas 
voyagers such as Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and Raleigh 
carried her flag around the world, searched out the hid- 
den wonders of the waters of the icy north and the sun- 
ny south, and maintained their country's honor against 
the mighty fleets of Spain. In those days Hollynshed 
and Stow compiled their chronicles and antiquities, and 
Hakluyt told the story of the adventures of the English. 
Then Sydney wrote his inimitable love-sonnets — his 
"Astrophel" and "Stella" — and Spenser gave the world 
his "Faery Queene," which for allegory, truthfulness, 
wealth of expression and vigor and beauty of imagi- 
nation is among the first of noble and wonderful works. 

494 



RICHARD HOOKER. 495 

Then dramatic art received its finish from Beaumont, 
Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, Shirley, Marlowe and Ben 
Jonson, whilst towering high above them all — above not 
only the poets of his own time, but also the Homers and 
Dantes of the past ages — the grandest and noblest of 
men, was William Shakespeare. His unapproachable 
genius cast the brightest lustre upon the times in which 
he lived and gave to him and his beloved England an 
immortality of glory and renown. 

Nor was the age wanting in men of scholarship and 
ability to mould the thought and the polity of the Church. 
Among the rulers were Parker, Grindal, Whitgift and 
Sandys ; among the teachers, John Jewel, James Pilking- 
ton and William Fulke. A new day had dawned, and 
in the calm of its early hours were the freshness of hope 
and the restlessness of freedom. The dew dropped from 
leaves and flowers cool and tinted, streams flowed merrily, 
birds sang gayly and the sun rose above the tree-tops ; 
then divines such as these girded themselves for the 
work and with might and main wrought for the ecclesi- 
astical settlement of England. But among them all none 
was greater than the erudite, judicious and temperate 
Richard Hooker. He does not stand beside Shakespeare 
and Bacon, but next to them he comes the first of the 
masters of that age of master-minds. His influence 
upon the Church is still great. She has no more honored 
name than his, no divine to whom she listens with such 
reverence, and no writer who more unanimously receives 
the respect of every school of thought within her borders. 

Hooker was born near Exeter, in Devonshire, in the 
year 1553 — the year in which with the death of Edward 
and the accession of Mary the dark clouds settled heavily 



496 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

upon the Reformed Church. Of the reign of terror the 
future champion of Anglicanism was unconscious. He 
was but a lisping child when Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, 
Bradford, Taylor, and others of the white-robed army of 
martyrs, were passing through the floods of fire into the 
heavenly rest. When he was able to think and to act, 
Mary had gone to her account, and Elizabeth, the favorite 
of England and the star of hope to Protestant Europe, 
reigned in her stead. Hooker, however, never concerned 
himself with affairs of state ; personally he knew nothing 
of the queen whom he loved and but little of the prelates 
whom he defended. His life had naught to do with 
courts. Humble though Hooker's parents were in re- 
spect both of riches and of birth, they were able to 
send him to the grammar school in Exeter, where by his 
earnestness, gravity, quick apprehension and industry he 
soon won the affections of his master. When about the 
age of eighteen, he passed through a serious illness which, 
though it weakened his body, brought strength and grace 
to his soul. He went back to his studies with even 
deeper conscientiousness and faith. Already, owing to 
the kindness of Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, was he a 
member of Corpus Christi at Oxford, and both a favorite 
with the president of his college and a marked man in 
the university. In due time he proceeded to the degrees 
of bachelor and master, was elected a fellow, and was even 
desired to read the university lectures in Hebrew. Finally 
he received orders, and about 1580 accepted the appoint- 
ment of preacher at St. Paul's Cross in London. In that 
year was born Archbishop Usher and were published 
Montaigne's Essays. 

The country was at this time in great unrest. Both 



RICHARD HOOKER. 497 

in Church and in State many parties were contending 
for supremacy. Controversy raged fiercely, and, as the 
queen's instincts warned her of the danger of such, the 
repression of controversy was tried with an iron hand. 
On the one side, Rome and Spain plotted against her, 
denouncing her right to the throne and her adherence 
to Protestantism ; on the other side, the followers of Cal- 
vin rejected her ecclesiastical settlement and sought to 
continue the English Reformation until it reached the 
completeness of that of Switzerland. Both papal and 
Puritan extremists refused to admit the right of lay 
interference in the government of the Church ; both 
claimed that jurisdiction was given, not to princes, but 
to the clergy. " Know," said Melville to James VI., 
"that there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scot- 
land ;" and to one of these — the Church, ruled by min- 
isters — was even James subject. To this principle Eliz- 
abeth could not assent. She was queen, and neither 
pope nor presbytery should stand beside her. They 
might have their own opinions, but in matters of gov- 
ernment, whether secular or ecclesiastical, the Crown 
was supreme. Should she and her Parliament be obe- 
dient to a clerical synod ? Should the papal domination 
which had so severely tried the soul of England in past 
years come back in the form of a ministerial dictator- 
ship ? Not for one moment was such to be thought of. 
She had made the Church broad enough for all reason- 
able and loyal people ; if any refused to abide therein, 
they were evidently unreasonable and disloyal, and must 
be treated accordingly. The divines might grapple with 
them intellectually ; if that failed, then she would grap- 
ple with them spiritually. Upon the suppression of such 

32 



49 8 READINGS IN CHURCH HIS TOR Y. 

depended the safety of England. Therefore to prison 
went both Romanist and Puritan, for they were made of 
obstinate stuff, and, having consciences of an uncompro- 
mising texture, they feared not the torture, confiscation 
or death. Some of them even recognized the obligation 
Elizabeth was under to punish them ; but, obligation or 
no obligation, Elizabeth or no Elizabeth, they changed 
not their mind. The one went to the scaffold denoun- 
cing the royal supremacy ; the other went to the cell cry- 
ing, " God save Queen Elizabeth I" Such were heroic, 
but they were not right. Society cannot be held to- 
gether without some compromise. The individual must 
be willing for the good of the multitude to sacrifice some 
opinions and some tastes. 

The position of Elizabeth was one of great difficulty ; 
she could not suffer the coming of chaos and she could 
not ignore the fosterings of rebellion. In 1570, Pius V. 
excommunicated her and released her subjects from their 
allegiance, yet for the most part the people were satisfied 
with her policy. Thousands of the clergy wheeled round 
at her bidding as loyally as they had done at the bidding 
of Mary. General conformity was all that she desired, 
and general conformity prevailed. And with this moder- 
ate, comprehensive arrangement Richard Hooker agreed. 
He found the times rent and troubled by the adherents 
of the papacy, and by the disciples of a rigid, narrow, 
unyielding puritanism ; both would have the Church of 
England give up things she held most dear — the one her 
independence, purity of doctrine and simplicity of wor- 
ship, and the other her historical continuity, her Liturgy, 
her orders and her liberty of thought ; and against both 
factions he lifted up his voice. Largely leaving the Ro- 



RICHARD HOOKER. 499 

man controversy to Bishop Jewel, he devoted his abilities 
to the vindication of the Church against the attacks of 
the Puritans, following them from argument to argument 
and point to point with his irresistible logic and his burn- 
ing thought until his purpose was attained. Moderate 
throughout, he avoided all extremes ; thus wisely guid- 
ing his craft down the mid-current, he escaped the dan- 
gers on either shoie, knowing that truth rarely lies on 
the outer edge, and that the clearest life and the richest 
grace will the sooner carry the soul to the ocean of 
divine purity and love. 

While Hooker was preacher at St. Paul's Cross he 
got married, and soon, like many another genius, he 
found that great talents and domestic felicity rarely go 
together. The first time Hooker went to London the 
wretched and aged horse he rode journeyed so leisurely 
through the pouring rain that he reached the city wet, 
weary and weatherbeaten. A Mrs. Churchman enter- 
tained him, and after a day or two in bed, by her care- 
ful nursing, he came around all right. The kind woman, 
seizing the opportunity, told him that he was of a ten- 
der constitution and needed a wife to nurse him and to 
take care of him. To this Hooker assented, but, hav- 
ing no experience in such matters, he commissioned her 
to select him such a wife, assuring her that he would 
abide by her choice. The landlady promptly gave him 
her daughter Joan — a damsel void of either beauty or 
portion, a vixen and a scold, and, notwithstanding her 
surname, strongly twisted to Puritanism. Into this un- 
suitable match the simple-minded divine entered, and, 
as good Izaak Walton puts it, ever after he had just 
cause to exclaim with the prophet, " Woe is me, that I 



5 03 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

am constrained to have my habitation in the tents of 
Kedar !" Poverty, tyranny and repentance were his por- 
tion. He at once lost his college-fellowship ; then, in 
1584, he took a poor country-parish in Buckingham- 
shire. Here it was that two of his old pupils found 
him in the field reading the Odes of Horace and watch- 
ing his little flock of sheep ; when released from this 
duty and with his guests returned to the house, " Rich- 
ard was called to rock the cradle." The young men 
pitied his distress and at once endeavored to make some 
better provision for him. 

The next year Hooker was made master of the Tem- 
ple. This position is inferior only to the episcopal throne 
and to the deanery of Westminster. The church, now 
rich in the associations of six centuries and splendid in 
marble pillars, lofty vaulting and knightly effigies, was 
built by the wealthy Templars, and on the dissolution 
of their order eventually it passed into the hands of the 
lawyers. Hooker found on entering upon his duties that 
the afternoon lecturer, Travers, was a Puritan, and, both 
men being positive in their convictions, controversy broke 
out, and soon the morning sermon preached Canterbury 
and the afternoon sermon Geneva. Travers charged 
Hooker with teaching fifteen erroneous or faulty doc- 
trines, against which charge Hooker vigorously defended 
himself. The unseemly conflict went on, the lecturer 
making his charges at one service and the master an- 
swering them at another, until the archbishop of Can- 
terbury interfered. Travers was dismissed. But Travers 
was an eloquent preacher and Hooker was dry and 
uninteresting ; so the lawyers were not pleased. Then, 
in 1 591, Hooker resigned and went to a parish in the 



RICHARD HOOKER. 501 

distant diocese of Salisbury, where in leisure and retire- 
ment he began his immortal work, Of the Laws of 
Ecclesiastical Polity. Upon this work rests his fame. 
In these pages his genius and his learning won for 
him a place among the eminent theologians of the 
Church. 

For pointed wit and polemic dexterity Hooker may 
be compared with Tertullian ; for keen penetration and 
glowing imagination, with Origen ; as an expositor of 
Holy Writ and for a pure, devoted life, with Chrysostom ; 
and for deep spirituality and clear insight into the heart 
of man and into the ways and mysteries of God, with 
Augustine. His scriptural, patristic and classic know- 
ledge is evident. Devoutly reverent of the past, he 
reproduces the best thoughts of the early and the 
mediaeval Church. He moves in the via media; on 
the one hand is the conservatism which would restrain 
and correct the progressive and varying present, and on 
the other is the kindly comprehensiveness which alone 
can save the Church from becoming a mere sect. The 
popularity of the writer was at once secured. At home 
and abroad his skill and his ability were recognized. 
When Clement VIII. had read the first book, he said, 
" There is no learning that this man hath not searched 
into — nothing too hard for his understanding. This man 
indeed deserves the name of an author; his books will 
get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of 
eternity that if the rest be like this they shall last till 
the last fire shall consume all learning." So James I. 
also testified : " Doubtless there is in every page of Mr. 
Hooker's book the picture of a divine soul — such pic- 
tures of Truth and Reason, and drawn in so sacred 



502 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

colors, that they shall never fade, but give an immortal 
memory to the author." 

Of the eight books into which the work is divided, 
only the first five are unmutilated ; the others, published 
after his death, bear the marks of change and interpola- 
tion. The best known are the first, on the nature and 
origin of law, and the fifth, on the ministers and details 
of public worship. 

Hooker's power lies mainly in his conception of the 
unity of truth as a whole, and not in the elaboration or 
the correctness of the details. From the immediate and 
intuitive apprehension of the wide subject before him he 
proceeds to support it with arguments more or less con- 
vincing. Not unfrequently in the fervor of his eloquence 
he loses the force of his position ; he beautifies his lines 
with splendid flights of imagination and gives to his 
periods glory and majesty without either convincing his 
adversary or satisfying his friend ; and not unfrequently 
one finds one's self assenting to the general view and 
disputing the reasons given to support that view. Here 
and there in these details Hooker ventures upon uncer- 
tain, if not dangerous, ground. He tries to vindicate 
some existing fact in the ecclesiastical economy which is 
contrary to his general principles, and with magniloquent 
rhetoric he defends indefensible positions. He says the 
best that can be said for an abuse, but that best is as a 
candle exposing the darkness. This was the vulnerable 
side which the Puritans never failed to attack. The 
mountain remained: that they could not remove; so 
they looked to the scraggling bushes and to the broken 
points upon its face. But such defects no more mar a 
work like to this than do the sun-spots mar the light or 



RICHARD HOOKER. 503 

the galled leaves the oak. No one now approves of his 
defence of pluralities and non-residence ; no one expects 
to be convinced of the truth and the aptness of every 
illustration or of every quotation. The attention is rather 
drawn to the general truth presented. Is that truth 
sufficiently supported, and is the impression of that truth 
left upon the mind healthful and consistent with other 
truths ? 

The first ruling thought of the work is the supremacy 
of law. A keynote is sounded in the opening sentence : 
" He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they 
are not as well governed as they ought to be shall never 
want attentive and favorable hearers." Of this the 
growth of religious and political sects is ample proof. 
Lawlessness has been the world's bane from the day that 
Adam and Eve preferred whim to duty. It brought 
down Satan from his throne and created the Tartarus 
of discord and wrath. But of Law, says Hooker, " there 
can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the 
bosom of God — her voice the harmony of the world." 
Providence, Destiny and Nature are names for that law 
by which the Deity governs the universe. It the angels 
willingly obey ; it to understand is man's first duty. 
Hence the drift and the purpose of Hooker are, first, " to 
show in what manner, as every good and perfect gift, so 
this very gift of good and perfect laws, is derived from 
the Father of lights ;" and secondly, " to teach men a 
reason why just and reasonable laws are of so great 
force, of so great use, in the world." Thus is Law placed 
upon the throne : " All things in heaven and earth do 
her homage — the very least as feeling her care, and the 
greatest as not exempted from her power, both angels 



504 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and men, and creatures of what condition soever — though 
each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform con- 
sent — admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." 
Such a recognition of the supremacy and the force of 
law involves an almost equally strong belief in conserv- 
atism. Novelty and change are dangerous, only excep- 
tionally associated with greatness. Unless circumstances 
demand, why should the experience of ages be set aside? 
The conclusions of the past were oftentimes evolved out 
of conditions — terrible and fiery conditions frequently — 
which aroused emotions and thoughts such as are neces- 
sary to a right judgment. At great cost of labor and 
endurance the pioneer cut a path through the primeval 
forest ; the engineer at even greater cost converted it 
into a hard, solid road ; since then, many a generation 
has travelled thereon, finding a good and convenient 
highway, and whenever necessary has made repairs : 
shall the desire for novelty destroy their work and make 
useless their experience ? So with the eternal verities, 
the facts of religion and the interpretation of infinite 
themes : let the work of the Fathers, Schoolmen and 
theologians — of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and such 
like giants of intellect and spirituality— be reverenced, 
and so far as possible allowed to direct our thought and 
to mould our devotion. Let the stately tree grow as 
long as it can grow ; then, if dear to the world, let its 
wood be cared for — made into something that shall re- 
mind the centuries to come of the oak that the people 
of old loved. Such is the spirit of conservatism which 
like a deep and pleasant stream flows through the pages 
of Hooker, appealing alike to tender and poetic and to 
positive and prosaic tempers. 



RICHARD HOOKER. 505 

On the other hand, however, Hooker teaches that the 
love of antiquity and of custom must not hinder changes 
which place and time may demand. Reason must needs 
rule. To it belongs the office of determining the laws 
of the moral relations, the historical development and 
the social and political institutions of man, of distin- 
guishing between what is changeable in them — between 
what is eternal and what is temporary even in the Bible 
and in the Church. That is a safe rule in theology 
which rigidly questions, and frequently unflinchingly 
condemns novelties ; but there are ways of presenting 
eternal and unchanging truths, modes and plans of 
doing the same work which necessarily vary in differ- 
ent ages and in different lands. In his objection to the 
ecclesiastical dogmatism of Puritan and of Romanist our 
author abandoned the narrow and uncertain ground of 
scriptural argument to base his conclusions on the gen- 
eral principles of moral and political science, on the eter- 
nal obligations of natural law. He denied that the New 
Testament taught any form of church government, and, 
though he held that bishops were of God, divinely and 
providentially constituted, he also taught that circum- 
stances might arise in which the Church would be justi- 
fied in and capable of abolishing their order. This was 
on the principle that things are oftentimes best conserved 
by wise and ready change. Buildings have been saved 
for ages by the judicious removal of some part which in 
its decay threatened and endangered the whole. When 
in the ecclesiastical fabric aught appears which is a hin- 
drance, a misrepresentation, a cumbrance, a corroding 
rust, Hooker claims that the Church should exercise 
her inalienable right to cut it away. The question is 



506 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

not so much precedent, or even scriptural authority, but 
does the thing subserve any beneficial purpose ? In this 
Hooker was at variance on the one hand with the Ro- 
manist, who clung tenaciously to the decrees of councils 
and to the decisions of the Fathers, and on the other hand 
with the Puritan, who sought to find in the New Testa- 
ment a complete code of directions concerning polity, 
practice and worship. He would reverence both author- 
ities, but he denied that in either was legislation for all 
time. 

But these principles of law, conservatism and reason 
are only the body of the work ; piety is its life and its 
soul. Hooker's immortality does not come from his 
controversy with the Puritans. That was only the 
accident which broke the alabastron of his genius and 
power. Nobler than crushing rejoinder or than sharp- 
ened wit are the sweetness, humility, Christ-mindedness 
and purity breathed into and beautifying his every page. 
In his life a divine radiance appeared, suffusing and over- 
spreading all that he said and did. He was a diligent 
preacher, instructive and plain, but unassuming and 
uninteresting, and thought that a sermon should not 
exceed one hour in length. A little thin man, short- 
sighted, with stooping shoulders and a blotched face, 
in the pulpit he was not attractive. On whatever point 
he fixed his eyes when he began his discourse, there they 
remained till he reached the end. He made no gestures 
and used none of the arts of oratory, but in every utter- 
ance grace abounded. Discernment shone out in such 
a line as this : " To make a wicked and a sinful man 
most holy through his believing is more than to create a 
world of nothing ;" and fervor in words such as these : 



RICHARD HOOKER. 507 

" Oh that God would open the ark of mercy, wherein 
this doctrine [of faith] lieth, and set it wide before the 
eyes of poor afflicted consciences, which fly up and 
down upon the water of their afflictions, and can see 
nothing but only the gulf and deluge of their sins, 
wherein there is no place for them to rest their feet." 
Sermons in which such passages are frequent may bring 
but little praise to the preacher, yet they redound to the 
glory of God. Hooker thought not of self. He was 
even timid ; there was about him, says Walton, " so 
blessed a bashfulness " that he was easily looked out 
of countenance. He spent hours — sometimes whole 
days — in the church in prayer and meditation, finding 
his chief delight in holy places and holy things, in the 
stillness of the sanctuary, in the pathos and exultation 
of prayer and praise, in the sweet mystery of sacra- 
ments. " What," he asks — " what is the assembling of 
the Church to learn but the receiving of angels de- 
scended from above ? What to pray, but the sending 
of angels upward ?" As a pastor he was most exem- 
plary, visiting his sick, settling village quarrels and 
caring for strangers. In every house he entered he 
had some kind word of exhortation for all its members 
and blessed each one of them by name. Thus he lived 
" making each day a step toward a blessed eternity." 
And thus simply by diligence and a holy life, in spite 
of his defects and apart altogether from his great talents, 
he endeared himself to his people, and was to them while 
he lived a bright and shining light, and after he died a 
long-remembered example of truth and holiness. 

Such a life could not fail to impress itself upon the 
teachings and the thoughts of the Ecclesiastical Polity. 



508 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

There is no tinge of sentimentalism, but a calm, digni- 
fied, intense devotion. Much as he delighted in the 
splendor of churches, he protested against the " great 
care to build and beautify these corruptible sanctuaries," 
and the little care, or none, " that the living temples of 
the Holy Ghost, the dearly-redeemed souls of the peo- 
ple of God, may be edified." Great as is the efficacy of 
baptism and communion, he reminds his readers that 
"all receive not the grace of God which receive the 
sacraments of his grace." He kept the festivals be- 
cause " well to celebrate these religious and sacred 
days is to spend the flower of our time happily." At 
the name of Jesus he took off his hat and bowed his 
knees ; he observed seasons of fasting and practised 
private confession to the minister, and he maintained 
the indelibility of orders. Of his opponents he writes : 
" It is our most hearty desire, and shall be always our 
prayer unto almighty God, that in the selfsame fervent 
zeal wherewith they seem to affect the good of the souls 
of men, and to thirst after nothing more than that all 
men might by all means be directed in the way of life, 
both they and we may constantly persist to the world's 
end." Richly does his soul pour forth its sweetness in 
the passage : " A dutiful and religious way for us were 
to admire the wisdom of God, which shineth in the 
beautiful variety of all things, but most in the manifold, 
and yet harmonious, dissimilitude of those ways where- 
by his Church upon earth is guided from age to age 
throughout all generations of men." He sends our 
thoughts from " the footstool to the throne of God," 
to the angels, " the glorious inhabitants of those sacred 
palaces where nothing but light and blessed immortal- 



RICHARD HOOKER. 509 

ity, no shadow of matter for tears, discontentments, 
griefs and uncomfortable passions to work upon, but 
all joy, tranquillity and peace, even for ever and ever, 
doth dwell," and he reminds us that those holy ones, 
" beholding the face of God, in admiration of so great 
excellency they all adore him, and, being rapt with the 
love of his beauty, they cleave inseparably for ever unto 
him." Thus he speaks of the book of Psalms : " Hero- 
ical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, 
exact wisdom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, 
the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the ter- 
rors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of 
Providence over this world, and the promised joys of 
that world which is to come, all good necessarily to be 
either known or done or had, — this one celestial foun- 
tain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disease incident 
into the soul of man, any wound or sickness named, for 
which there is not in this treasure-house a present com- 
fortable remedy at all times ready to be found." 

Holy and inspiring thoughts such as these lie strewn 
over the pages of Hooker's work — sweeter far than 
philosophical or theological passages even though set 
forth with all the graces of rhetoric and expanded with 
the sayings of the men of old. They are brilliant and 
suggestive as the stars of heaven, fragrant and beautiful 
as the flower-clusters of the garden. 

With the piety and the general principles of the book 
the Puritans could have no difference. They agreed with 
the premises, but objected to the conclusions. When 
read, they remained as dissatisfied as ever with the Eliza- 
bethan policy. It was a law which was impelling them to 
deny Anglicanism ; it was the necessity of change which 



510 READINGS IN CHURCH .HISTORY. 

suspended the love of conservatism. They could not deny 
Hooker's ground, therefore they attacked the little flaws, 
the faulty details, in his argument which ever and anon ap- 
peared. For a while Hooker's labor seemed thrown away, 
but genius can wait; now his views prevail in Christendom. 
The industry and the perseverance needed for the 
study of the Ecclesiastical Polity have a threefold reward. 
Something of the spirituality of Hooker must needs be 
imparted ; the soul cannot tarry long in that holy and 
salutary atmosphere without benefit. Nor can the ices 
of narrowness and of bigotry remain unaffected in the 
sunshine of his great, comprehensive mind. The tend- 
ency, too, will be created to think kindly of the heroic 
past and to value highly the heritage coming down 
through the ages to the present. The student of Hooker 
will be neither an ecclesiastical nor a theological sec- 
tarian. He will learn that no age, no land, no school, 
has all truth. He will bow before mystery and will re- 
fuse to affirm positively concerning unseen or unrevealed 
things. Order will be his delight, chaos his dread. Services 
in which the arts of music, language, ceremony and archi- 
tecture have their place will charm, but only because 
they suggest the beauty and the devotion of the land 
where saints and angels see the face of the King. 
Kindly disposed toward all, he will yet love with an 
unfaltering and a quiet heart the Church in which this 
great master wrought and in which God has cast his lot. 
Hence the individual soul, planted in the garden of grace 
and watered by the teachings of this book, is apt to grow 
into the noblest type of Christianity, and to become a 
bulwark of strength to Sion and an example of holiness, 
constancy and reason to the faithful. 



RICHARD HOOKER. 5 1 1 

Richard Hooker remained in the diocese of Salisbury 
till 1595, when he was presented by the queen to the 
rectory of Bishopsbourne, in Kent — an ancient village 
where was once a manor belonging to the archbishops, 
situate near the highway leading from Canterbury to 
Dover, and, as its name indicates, upon the banks of a 
small stream. Here the good man both completed his 
Ecclesiastical Polity and finished his course on earth. 

Of the great events of that age of excitement Hooker 
makes no mention. Such things indeed lay beyond the 
scope of his work, though scarcely beyond his observa- 
tion. As a Protestant he must have thought much of 
the Council of Trent, which after it had formulated 
modern Romanism closed its sessions in 1563, when 
Hooker was yet a child ; seven years later his blood 
must have been stirred with the tidings of the Massacre 
of St. Bartholomew. Like most Englishmen, he would 
smile when he heard that Elizabeth the queen had been 
sought in marriage by Ivan the Terrible, Philip of Spain 
and the duke of Alengon. He was master of the Temple 
when, in the February of 1587, the beautiful and unfor- 
tunate Mary queen of Scots was brought to her death. 
In the July of the next year he too must needs have had 
his part in the rejoicings over the destruction of the 
Armada. The noise of the busy world, rumors from 
abroad, gossipings of court, adventures of travellers, voy- 
agers and soldiers, tidings of new books and plays, and 
stories of human dreams and realizations, could not but 
penetrate the seclusion of his study. In the streets, 
wandering hither and thither, he must have seen the 
stately pageant, the gayly-dressed courtier, the busy 
merchant, the ruffed lady and the odds and ends of the 



5 I 2 READINGS IN CHURCH HIST OR Y. 

unwashed multitude. He may have noticed with interest 
the black-timbered houses with their fantastic carvings 
and their overhanging upper stories — perhaps in the 
shops have made his purchases of books, quills, medi- 
cines and clothing. But there is no trace of such things 
in his pages, no allusion, no figure, that would imply 
that he had ever seen or been influenced by the like. 
The chief means by which England has been made 
the herald of God to the remote parts of the earth arise 
largely from her geographical position and her maritime 
spirit. In the seas which break upon her shores her 
sons have acquired a courage and a love of adventure 
which have enabled them fearlessly to pass into danger- 
ous and unknown wilds, and to face alike the bleak, 
remorseless winds from the Arctic and the huge, rolling 
billows of the Atlantic. There they made the waters 
their home, the white-caps and the wave-roar their 
delight. And when one wanders upon the tide-washed 
sands near to the swish of the surf, in the clean white 
foam, the expanse of dark and undulating water, the sky 
set with changing clouds, the seafowl sweeping hither 
and thither in the streams of the wind and the Vessels 
far away upon the ocean-dip, one is moved to admira- 
tion and to joy; but happier still is the mariner when 
the stiff and steady breeze fills the sails and sends the 
barque bounding over the main. No aeolian harp is 
sweeter than the whistling rigging ; no organ has a 
nobler note than the deep sough of the sea. And the 
voyager of old longed to guide his shining keel along 
the untravelled and the unnamed ways and to plant his 
country's flag upon distant strands. He looked toward 
the weird waste and turned his vessel's prow toward the 



RICHARD HOOKER. 513 

line where the salt spray seemed to wash the sky. So 
in remote ages the Accad had looked from the rocks of 
Syria upon the Mediterranean and from the Iberian 
straits the Phoenician had peered into the Western ocean ; 
he too would know what lay beyond his ken. And 
thus, in " the wide joy of waters," he wandered along 
the shores of earth's continents and gave English names 
to bays and rivers, to capes and islands, and to England's 
realm added regions rich in treasures and vast in extent. 
The vigor and the daring of the sea-sweepers were 
severely tried in these days. Philip had lost all hope 
of winning England and destroying Protestantism by 
means of matrimony. In 1588 he was ready to try force. 
To humiliate Elizabeth and to destroy her realm and her 
Church he prepared the Armada. The pope gave it his 
benediction, and Spain styled it great, noble and invinci- 
ble. England waited for the struggle. When the first 
sails were seen from her shores, the beacon-fires flashed 
from point to point along the coast and through the land 
from hill to hill and from tower to tower, a supreme 
moment in the life of the nation — the moment, indeed, 
in which it behoved all good men to cry aloud to 
Heaven and to gird on the sword. None but the dead 
slept that night. To arms ! to arms ! and the clash of 
weapons, the tramp of horses, the ringing of bells, the 
sounding of trumpets and the march of men betokened 
the spirit of the people — the resolve that, should the 
Spaniard win English land, never should he rule English 
men. Little thought they that on their success depended 
the future not only of their own country, but also that 
of the nations yet unborn — of a republic and a dominion 
in the West and of an empire in the Australasian seas. 

33 



514 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

But no excitement carried them away ; coolly and calmly 
they awaited the approach of the foe. Even when the 
Armada neared the rocks of Plymouth, Sir Francis 
Drake would have finished his play of bowls. " Plenty 
of time," said he, "to win the game and beat the Span- 
iards." Out of the Sound sailed the English fleet — small 
and poor, but having on board souls of fierce and daunt- 
less courage. They followed the great sea-host of Spain 
up the Channel — a fearful host, but three years later Sir 
Richard Grenville in his good barque the Revenge alone 
fought fifty Spanish ships, each ship larger than his own. 
On sailed the Armada — one hundred and thirty-two 
ships, to say nothing of the caravels, with three thousand 
cannon and of sailors, soldiers, slaves and gentlemen 
more than four and thirty thousand, besides a hundred 
and fifty monks and a vicar of the Inquisition. Close 
on their heels came the English men-of-war, nimble 
and fleet, and soon the tiny Disdain began the attack by 
pouring a broadside into one of the laggards. Then the 
Ark Royal, the Revenge, the Victory and the Triumph 
did a good afternoon's work. A dark night with a heavy 
sea was followed by a long day's battle — so well done 
that next morning the Spaniard cared not to renew the 
fight. Thus the western men harassed the enemy 
through the Channel, till in the Straits the Armada suf- 
fered so much that the Spanish admiral determined to 
return to Spain — not, however, by way of Plymouth, but 
around the North of Scotland. The ruin was completed 
by a fearful storm off the Orkneys ; many ships went 
down, others were driven ashore, a few escaped and some 
returned to the Channel, to fall into the hands of the 
English cruisers. About the end of September the rem- 



RICHARD HOOKER. 515 

nant of the Armada reached Santander, and England 
sang her thanksgiving to the God of battles. 

By this victory was secured the cause for which mar- 
tyrs had died and Reformers had wrought. None could 
again imperil the work either of Luther in Germany or 
of Cranmer in England, nor would the old chains ever 
be refastened upon the nations or the New World be 
dragged into the slavery. The voyagers went on with 
the discovery of strange lands and with the planting of 
colonies ; the foundations of commonwealths were laid ; 
political and religious freedom was maintained; the 
sea was made the highway of the nations ; and the 
Church of an island extended to the ends of the earth. 
These things engaged the age, but they did not engage 
the mind of Hooker. They interest us far more than 
they affected him. 

But a picture of Hooker in his quiet country parish 
may be given not wholly imaginary. Here he shines as 
the loving pastor and the loyal priest, doing well his duty 
both to God and to man. He was, it is true, in a district 
where decay had already set in. Earlier, Kent was second 
only to Norfolk for trade and for manufactures, and was 
superior to all the counties for its shrines and its relics. 
When the Reformation came, there were no more pil- 
grimages to the tomb of the blissful martyr St. Thomas ; 
and when Dover began to lose its position as the gate- 
way between England and France, business fell off in 
the towns and villages along the London Road. But 
with the passing away of prosperity and with the coming 
of seclusion Nature put on her most beautiful dress. 
Nowhere else has she sought to make amends for all 
defects with such a loving, bountiful hand. Kent is not 



516 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the finest of the forty counties, but it is full of nooks of 
exquisite loveliness. Bishopsbourne is one of these. 

Hooker wandered from cottage to cottage along rough 
roads, but the cottages were thatched with straw on 
which the lichen grew and in which the swallow and 
the sparrow made their nest. There were rose-bushes 
by the door, and there was a pet-flower in the diamond- 
paned windows. Within, the floors were earth or stone 
covered with rushes ; simple furniture. Outside, the pigs 
and the poultry had the lane to themselves. Beyond the 
village stretched the common where the peasant had 
his bit of corn-land and found pasture for his cow and 
his sheep. From the towers of Canterbury, three miles 
away, came once in a while the sound of pealing bells. 
Uneventful, poor, simple, but a paradise for a studious 
parson. 

Quiet, happy, sympathetic and with a strong spice of 
good-humor, Hooker loved and understood his people. 
He appreciated their old-fashioned ways and their quaint 
sayings, their dogged perseverance, independent spirit, 
love of fair play, strange inconsistencies, and their end- 
less varieties of character, temper and aim. He joined 
with them in their mirth as well as in their sorrow. 
Their games and their pastimes, wassailings and wakes, 
church and bridal ales, had an interest for him. He saw 
their merrymakings at the festive seasons — the cutting 
of the cake on Twelfth Night, the rough play of Plough 
Monday, the burning of the holly-boy and the ivy-girl at 
Shrovetide, the bringing home the hawthorn and the 
crowning of the queen in the glorious month of flowers, 
the dances and the kindling of the bonfires on Midsum- 
mer eve, the feasting and the songs of harvest-home, and, 



RICHARD HOOKER. $1? 

above all, the joys of the merry Christmas-tide. His 
heart, too, must have been touched by chimes, waits 
and carol-singing; he must have rejoiced at the unre- 
served mingling of rich and of poor in the days of com- 
mon gladness. Perhaps, as was usual with the clergy of 
his time, he may have sat with book and beer by his 
side, and have watched the morris-dancings, quintals, 
cudgel-plays and foot-ball on the village green. Walton 
gives us a glimpse of his behavior when the people beat 
the bounds of the parish. These, having been ascertained 
by the rector, church-wardens and older parishioners in 
lieu of maps and surveys, were severally pointed out to 
the village boys and forcibly impressed upon their mem- 
ories. Here one would be thrown into the brook ; there, 
another soundly whipped; and there, another bumped 
vigorously against a wall, tree, post or the ground. The 
amusement and chagrin occasioned were not forgotten 
within the twelvemonth. Hooker always accompanied 
such perambulations, and " he would usually express 
more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would 
then always drop some loving and facetious observations 
to be remembered against the next year, especially by 
the boys and young people." Not that Hooker saw and 
appreciated the home- life, the pastimes, the lightsome 
passions and the picturesque surroundings of the coun- 
try-people as did the charming, frolic-loving Herrick, 
England's sweetest lyric poet. He was rather after the 
heart of the quaint angler who wrote his biography — 
moved at the song of the birds, the rippling of streams 
and the pleasantries of humanity ; but quietly so. If 
he ever handled the rod and the line, he would be most 
apt to follow the counsel of the excellent Dame Juliana 



5 l8 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Berners and to say his prayers or engage in meditation 
while waiting for the fish to bite. 

But this sympathy with the lighter side of human 
nature — beneficial as it is to all men, and necessary as 
it is to one given to deep and wearing study — was only 
incidental to Hooker. His home was amid ecclesiasti- 
cal rather than social surroundings. In his village sanc- 
tuary he was as one standing in the vestibule of heaven, 
his face radiant with celestial light and his heart throb- 
bing with angelic emotions. The church in which he 
ministered is still standing, but is much altered. Like 
the religious edifices of those times, it lacked conve- 
niences and comforts now thought necessary. There 
were no pews ; only a few plain oak benches here and 
there. In cold weather there was no fire, and in dull 
days no light. Evening service was held before the sun 
went down ; morning service, before the mists had risen 
from the water-side. In the summer the church floor 
was strewn with sweet-smelling rushes, and in the win- 
ter with straw. The communion-table — then called 
" God's board " — was in the body of the church, and not 
in the chancel, so that in the celebration, like the pope 
of Rome, the clergy of the out-of-the-way churches of 
Dalmatia and the ministers of Geneva, the priest faced 
the people. Men wore their hats in church ; perhaps — 
as elsewhere — brought their hounds and hawks to the 
services, and whispered one to another about weather, 
crops and gossip. In some places pedlers plied their 
trade in the church porch before and after prayers. The 
service was much the same as now; the psalms were 
sung, but there were no hymns. In the morning some- 
times a homily was read, less frequently a sermon was 



RICHARD HOOKER. 519 

preached, the length of the latter depending upon the 
ecclesiastical proclivities of the preacher. If an Angli- 
can, it might end within the hour; if a Puritan, the 
period would be between two and three hours. It was 
doctrinal or expository rather than practical, a treatise 
rather than an essay; sometimes interesting, always 
profitable, for George Herbert hath it, 

" The worst speak something good : if all want sense, 
God takes a text, and preacheth patience." 

For the youth there was catechizing after the second 
lesson at evening prayer. Little came in to break the 
monotony ; once in a while a christening, a wedding or a 
funeral. Most men would have lapsed into undisturbed 
restfulness ; not so Hooker. His zeal and his devotion 
were not dependent upon external things. Whether vis- 
ited or not by bishop or by archdeacon, he did his duty 
fearlessly and faithfully, as in the sight of God. For 
him the Church had no higher preferment ; he foresaw 
not the glory that should be his of moulding the thought 
and kindling the love of the sons and daughters of the 
Church he so well loved ; he knew not that by the con- 
sent of ages he would be crowned with a coronet of im- 
perishable glory ; nor did he care. Hence the prayer of 
his pious biographer : " Bless, O Lord — Lord, bless his 
brethren, the clergy of this nation, with effectual endeav- 
ors to attain, if not to his great learning, yet to his 
remarkable meekness, his godly simplicity and his Chris- 
tian moderation ; for these will bring peace at the last." 
In the last year of the sixteenth century, and in the 
forty-sixth year of his age, this excellent divine entered 
into his rest. His last illness was marked with the same 



520 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

holy thought that had characterized his life. He medi- 
tated upon " the number and the nature of angels, and 
their blessed obedience and order, without which peace 
could not be in heaven." He longed that it might be so 
on earth. To his friend Dr. Saravia he said, " I have 
lived to see this world is made up of perturbations, and 
I have been long preparing to leave it, and gathering 
comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account 
with God, which I now apprehend to be near; and, 
though I have by his grace loved him in my youth , and 
feared him in mine age, and labored to have a conscience 
void of offence to him and to all men, yet if thou, O 
Lord, be extreme to mark what I have done amiss, who 
can abide it ? And therefore, where I have failed, Lord, 
show mercy to me, for I plead not my righteousness, but 
the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His merits 
who died to purchase pardon for penitent sinners ; and 
since I owe thee a death, Lord, let it not be terrible, and 
then take thine own time ; I submit to it. Let not mine, 
O Lord, but let thy will, be done." The words in ital- 
ics indicate a spiritual experience somewhat uncommon, 
and yet natural to one who had thought so deeply upon 
the mysterious majesty of God and the order which pre- 
vails in his immediate presence. When the end came, it 
was as the touch of an angel : a short conflict, a faint 
sob, and the soul was in the everlasting light. 

A November morning, the day of the commemora- 
tion of the faithful departed, the passing-bell announced 
to Bishopsbourne that victory had come to the beloved 
rector. Ere long his remains were carried through the 
lichgate to the grave in the chancel of his parish church. 
There they still lie. Had they who saw the earth receive 



RICHARD HOOKER. 521 

her trust foreshadowed the night of shame and sorrow 
that should succeed the sunlit evening of the Elizabethan 
age, they would have thanked God that he had taken to 
himself one whose loving, childlike heart could never 
have endured the darkness, desolation and defeat. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Ei)t puritan gmpremacg. 

Puritanism neither began with the Hampton Court 
Conference nor ended with that of Savoy. It existed long 
before 1604 and long after 1661, but these are time- 
marks in its history between which it attained to and 
fell from its greatest strength and glory. At no time 
earlier or since were its better and its worse sides so 
distinctly shown. And this fact suggests the caution 
not to judge either Puritanism or Anglicanism by its 
exaggerations, whether good or bad. No movement in 
which the passions are powerfully excited and the actors 
are deeply in earnest can escape running to extremes. 
Hence a representation of the great religious parties of 
the seventeenth century which creates absolute disgust 
or absolute approval — which makes the one the perfec- 
tion of wisdom and charity and the other a caricature of 
humanity — is unreasonably and cruelly unjust. In truth, 
no period in history demands more careful judgment, 
greater love and more setting aside of prejudice than do 
the sixty years between the day when James I. threatened 
to harry every Puritan out of the land and the day when 
amid storm and dying hopes the Lord Protector passed 
from among men. 

The Elizabethan attempt to include the whole people 
within one national and comprehensive Church failed 
522 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. $2$ 

because the age knew nothing of compromise and cared 
nothing for charity. Cranmer's theory of reformation was 
that whatever in the Church was contrary to the written 
word and the practice of early Christianity should be 
rejected ; otherwise, it might remain. This theory satis- 
fied many ; it failed utterly with the remnant of Rome, 
which held that the mediaeval Church was as infallible as 
the primitive, and with the adherents of Calvin, who had 
no faith whatever in ecclesiastical authority. Thus were 
developed three definite schools, each disagreeing with 
the other two and each aiming at supremacy. On one 
thing, however, the Anglican and the Puritan were 
agreed : Rome should never again have power in Eng- 
land. Charles I. had a French wife, but he besought 
that none should defame " the pious, sober and devout 
actions of those reverend persons who were the first 
laborers in the blessed Reformation." Both Anglican 
and Puritan united in love for the martyrs and in hatred 
for the persecutors ; and after the Gunpowder Plot, Rome 
had little hope or chance. This gave opportunity for 
the growth of the antagonism between the opponents of 
the old system. They speedily placed between them- 
selves, unhappily not a chasm, but a field in which to 
war and to shed each other's blood. 

From the first the Puritan, inspired by such as Calvin, 
Bullinger and Zwingle, disliked the conservatism which 
ruled in the English Reformation. He neither recog- 
nized the value of historical or organic continuity nor 
cared for episcopacy, vestments or liturgical services. 
Time strengthened his prejudices and defined his posi- 
tion. He became positive in doctrine. God, he held, 
makes himself known to man by a direct communica- 



524 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

tion of his Spirit; hence the superiority of preaching. 
The inward and spiritual grace was more than the out- 
ward and visible sign ; therefore, even if rites and cere- 
monies were not superstitious, they were unnecessary. 
Upon curious questions and baffling mysteries he not 
only speculated, but also dogmatized ; so that emotions 
were examined and prescribed, works decided, and the 
number of the reprobate and the nature of future pun- 
ishment ascertained. The Anglican, on the other hand, 
taught that God reveals himself to the individual by 
means of operations external, thus making sacraments, 
acts of charity and devotion and the services of the 
sanctuary both aids to faith and means of grace. He 
valued episcopacy because by it the ages were linked 
together and the ministry and the ministrations made 
sure. He positively refused to enter into the realm of 
mystery, to declare aught concerning things not clearly 
revealed or to ordain uniformity of thought or feeling. 
In the desire for personal holiness and for the renovation 
of the times he was as eager as the Puritan, as much 
addicted to prayer, fasting and meditation, and as earnest 
that the glory of God should prevail. But he shunned 
alike the dogmatism of Rome and the dogmatism of 
Geneva. The asserted infallibility of both was to him 
abhorrent. It was not possible that all grace, know- 
ledge, righteousness and truth was confined either to 
papal or to Puritan Christians. The one had dimmed 
and defiled the past, so beautiful and sweet, so tenderly 
appealing to the calm and gentle soul ; the other would 
blot it out for ever, abolishing the loveliness of worship, 
the triumphs of architecture and music, the lines of 
prayer and praise which for long centuries had expressed 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 525 

the devotions of holy men, and in their place substi- 
tuting a distasteful plainness and poverty of worship, 
surrounding and service. Hence that which attracted 
the one repelled the other. They regarded the Church 
from opposite points of view : the Puritan deemed it a 
society of men voluntarily banded together for the pur- 
poses of edification and benevolence, and the Anglican 
as a divine organization in which dwelt the Holy Ghost, 
speaking through the bishops the things of God. In 
the one case the individual cared for and controlled the 
Church ; in the other the Church cared for and controlled 
the individual. The more intense conviction became on 
either side, the greater grew the mutual misunderstanding 
and bitterness. The Puritan regarded the Anglican as 
godless because he cared for the externals of religion, 
and the Anglican likewise condemned the Puritan be- 
cause he ignored them. Neither party could perceive 
that each system counterbalanced the other, and that 
both were necessary to a perfect Church. The essence 
of Christianity did not, • indeed, lie in the forms and 
ceremonies, the outward expressions of religion. They 
were as the shell to the kernel, but He who made the 
kernel saw fit to enclose it in and to defend it with the 
shell, and in the preservation of the faith and the develop- 
ment of devotion these accessories have their part and 
are not wholly human. 

No better exponents of their respective systems could 
there be than Launcelot Andrewes and Richard Baxter. 
The former was from 1619 to 1626 bishop of Winchester, 
the latter from 1 641 to 1660 vicar of Kidderminster. 
Their devotion, zeal and purity are beyond all question. 
The ripe scholarship of Andrewes made him first among 



526 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the translators of the Authorized Version and a most ac- 
complished exegete of both the inspired and the patris- 
tic writings ; the lack of academic training did not mar 
the usefulness of Baxter. Both were, indeed, greater in 
heart and broader in mind than the schools to which 
they belonged ; possibly, had such as they been brought 
into close contact, the mingling of vigor and gentleness, 
of impetuosity and calmness, would have been hastened. 
Neither man ever swerved from the distinctness and the 
definiteness of his principles. Andrewes was an ascetic, 
an indefatigable student, a munificent and conscientious 
prelate and an attractive preacher. His sermons were 
full of odd conceits and quaint word-plays, but flowing 
through all was a profound spirituality. For a quarter 
of a century he stood forth the great doctor of the An- 
glican Church ; and when he died, both Crashaw and 
Milton celebrated him in verse. The latter poet repre- 
sents him as entering Paradise in the robes of his order ; a 
Puritan publisher declares that "to name him was enough 
praise." The Manual of Private Devotions, in which is 
displayed the rarest of all gifts — that of composing pray- 
ers — is a favorite book in the hands of the Anglican 
clergy. 

The glory of grace in this holy bishop shines with 
equal lustre in Baxter. Weak in body, but active in 
mind and chastened in soul, he was great as a pastor, an 
author and a controversalist. When he went to Kidder- 
minster, a few only professed to be moral ; ere long " a 
passing traveller along the streets at a given hour heard 
the sounds of praise and prayer in every household." 
He refused to wear the surplice, administer the Lord's 
Supper or use the sign of the cross in baptism ; bishops 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. $2? 

he disliked and disobeyed ; to such services as Andrewes 
delighted in he gave no praise ; but he approved of the 
Prayer-book generally. The severity of his theology 
may be seen in his Call to the Unconverted ; the sweet 
beauty of his soul, in the Saint's Everlasting Rest. His 
works are said to have still a matchless circulation 
among the English-speaking race. He died in 169 1, his 
last words, " Almost well." 

The Church of England has no greater glory than 
that translation of the sacred Scriptures commonly called 
" the Authorized Version." In its production the two 
schools of thought within her pale loyally and unself- 
ishly united. Both Anglican and Puritan, forgetting 
for the nonce their differences and " supported within 
by the truth and innocency of a good conscience, hav- 
ing walked the ways of simplicity and integrity, as be- 
fore the Lord," were one in their hopes that by their 
labors the Church of England should reap good fruit. 
While engaged in that work no shadow of ecclesiastical 
disturbance fell upon them. They were, indeed, happy 
in the accession of a prince who manifested his zeal " by 
religious and learned discourse, by frequenting the house 
of God, by hearing the word preached, by cherishing 
the teachers thereof, by caring for the Church as a most 
tender and loving nursing-father." Posterity has not 
been so liberal in its appreciation of King James, but the 
men of that day had good hope because he had quietly 
succeeded to the work of Elizabeth and secured peace 
for England. A sentence of exquisite beauty in the 
epistle dedicatory cannot too often be read : " Among 
all our jt>ys, there was no one that more filled our hearts 
than the blessed continuance of the preaching of God's 



528 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

sacred word among us, which is that inestimable treas- 
ure which excelleth all the riches of the earth, because 
the fruit thereof extendeth itself not only to the time 
spent in this transitory world, but directeth and dis- 
poseth men into that eternal happiness which is above 
in heaven." The words were written by Miles Smith, 
bishop of Gloucester, and express the true spirit of both 
parties ; but stormy days soon arose to rend asunder the 
readers of the Book. 

In their noblest life Puritanism tended to an active, 
masculine type of Christianity and Anglicanism to a quiet, 
passive, feminine development. The keynote of the one 
was duty ; of the other, meditation. One would bring 
heaven down to earth ; the other would lift earth up to 
heaven. The most beautiful illustration of the gentler 
characteristic is found in George Herbert. In the little 
village of Bemerton, of which he was made rector in 
1630, by the holiness and sweetness of his life he set 
forth the graces of devotion, self-denial, tenderness and 
love. Wherever he went his influence was for right- 
eousness. When in the evening his bell tolled for pray- 
ers, the shepherd and the ploughman would stay their 
work that they too might breathe a prayer to Heaven. 
His love of service blended with a quiet, thoughtful de- 
votion, out of which soil sprang the tenderest blossoms 
of poetic feeling. Yet, like his friend the saintly Nich- 
olas Farrer, George Herbert sought to avoid rather than 
to meet the storms of life. His parish was a refuge 
where he could shelter and hide himself from the world. 
There he created a spiritual paradise. Around him he 
saw the myriad-sided sacrament of nature; beesfclouds, 
flowers and birds conveyed to his mind the grace of 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 5 29 

assurance and consolation. His pure, earnest soul 
seemed to bring forth fruit at all times and without 
effort. He wrote poems like those of Donne — full of 
" quaint words and trim invention," and in which are 
displayed the transparent sincerity, sublime devotion 
and beautiful piety of a man after God's own heart. 
For long has the world esteemed the Temple as display- 
ing the true soul of Anglicanism. Such men, however, 
fail in the day of religious or social change. They have 
the sweetness of the rose, and, like the smooth sea be- 
neath the summer's sun, awaken indolent delight and 
dreamy pleasure, but there is nothing in them of the 
sturdy oak or of the ocean wild and furious with storm, 
attracting and entrancing the soul. 

The type of the active spirit of religion is John Milton. 
Pure, devout, liberal and poetical was he, but duty sent 
him out among men to fight and to struggle against 
abuses and wrongs. Instead of a haven, such as he love 
nothing better than the conflict and the terror of storms. 
George Herbert listens to the chiming of bells and the 
singing of choirs, and they remind him of heaven ; he 
prays, " Oh that I were with the angels there !" Milton 
also was moved by the sweet strains of music to think 
of the better land, but his feeling was by the sweeping 
away of sin, injustice and folly to make this earth " keep 
in time with heaven." Hence the magnificence and 
majesty of Paradise Lost — utterly unlike the violet-like 
gentleness of the Temple or the Christian Year, but 
expressing the vigor, energy, restlessness and glory of 
the Puritan, his theology, social life and aspirations. He 
flung himself into the turmoil of the times with the zest 
and the strength of a master-spirit. Scorn, contempt 
34 



530 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

and a sword had he for all that stood in his way. The 
hand of the Lord was upon him, and he moved among 
men with the grandeur and force of one of his celestial 
creations. But such men wound and crush needlessly. 
They have no sympathy with and cannot understand 
others who are not as they are. They excite fear and 
admiration, but obtain neither love nor worship. 

There was, indeed, a time when Milton had the pure 
imagination, the sensuous glow and the pagan touch 
which brought forth such abundant fruits in Shakespeare, 
Spenser and Ben Jonson. In his early days he could 
write odes upon the Nativity and May morning, epitaphs 
upon the bard of Stratford and the university-carrier, 
sing of 

" the breathing roses of the wood, 
Fair silver-buskin'd nymphs," 

and wander with delight 

" By the rushy-fringed bank 
Where grows the willow and the osier dank ;" 

but this was twenty years before he set pen to Paradise 
Lost. By the end of that long period the Muse which 
created a Comus and an L Allegro had received the im- 
press of the severest form of Puritanism. In the fight 
with bishops and kings the gentle-spirited, cultured and 
sympathetic youth changed into a man of iron will, 
intense purpose, single idea and consuming energy. For 
ever vanished the heart-power which brought his first 
work near to the most charming of earth's poetry. His 
indignant earnestness made him intolerant, vituperative, 
vengeful and unjust. Into his soul entered the fulness 
of the gloom of Genevan thought : for the one of his 
own type, heaven ; for all others, remorseless malediction 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 53 1 

and everlasting damnation. Bound by the ligaments of 
a narrow Puritanism, his spirit never rises into the realms 
of imagination nor enters the gardens of luxuriant meta- 
phor, rich speech or happy suggestion where Dante was 
so thoroughly at home. His Jehovah is a monarch 
governing by constitution and giving to a council of 
angels reasons for his policy ; his Satan is a republican 
whose great sin has been to attempt in heaven what the 
Puritans tried in England. After a fashion very earthy 
and human, courts are held, battles fought, judgments 
pronounced and laws enacted. Adam and Eve live and 
love in the prudish and prosaic style of people who be- 
lieve in supralapsarianism and final perseverance; the 
husband teaches the wife the duty of obedience, and the 
wife promises the husband unquestioning fidelity and 
implicit trust. The dialogue in Paradise between the 
first parents gives one of the best glimpses extant into 
a home such as Milton desired, but, unhappily, owing 
either to his own blunder or to the perversity of woman- 
kind, such as he did not obtain. Severe and unsympathetic, 
heavy and forceful, the great epic flows on, noble in its 
might and exact in its construction and sentiment, at 
times reaching passages of beauty and of grandeur ; but 
even the bursts of sunshine illumine without playfulness 
and the word-pictures lose their exquisiteness in arti- 
ficiality. There is little to touch the world's heart. Like 
Assyrian tablets, the poem is treasured, but few among 
men wade into its shallowest waters, much less plunge 
into its slow-moving depths, and none like to think of 
Milton in this last expression of his soul. And yet 
echoes of the early days sometimes return, showing that 
underneath there still remained a touch of the spirit 



532 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

which dwelt ever in George Herbert and had once 
influenced him. Here he speaks of the worship in heaven : 

"The harp 
Had work, and rested not; the solemn pipe 
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop, 
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire, 
Temper'd soft tunings, intermix'd with voice 
Choral or unison : of incense, clouds 
Fuming from golden censers hid the mount." 

Milton did not receive this suggestion from Puritanism : 
men of the school of Calvin love neither organs nor in- 
cense ; on the contrary, it comes from such far-off lines 
as the well-known prayer in // Penseroso, in which appears 
the churchman rather than the author of Areopagitica, 
the recluse rather than the man of the world : 

" But let my due feet never fail 
To walk the studious cloisters pale, 
And love the high-embowed roof 
With antic pillars massy proof, 
And storied windows richly dight, 
Casting a dim religious light : 
There let the pealing organ blow 
To the full-voiced choir below 
In service high and anthems clear, 
As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
Dissolve me into ecstasies 
And bring all heav'n before mine eyes. 

And may at last my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage, 
The hairy gown and mossy cell 
Where I may sit and rightly spell 
Of every star that heav'n doth show 
And ev'ry herb that sips the dew, 
Till old experience do attain 
To something like prophetic strain." 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 533 

Perhaps it was well that Milton should develop other- 
wise than according to this early promise. He was to 
be the expression of a life distinct from that suggested 
by these lines — the epiphany of a spirit which had little 
in common with that of the opposite religious school. 

In that age these active and passive types of character 
were distinct and uncompromising. Not that all An- 
glicans were as George Herbert or all Puritans as John 
Milton: unhappily, these, like Bishop Andrewes and 
Richard Baxter, are the noble and exceptional develop- 
ments ; but these, though far asunder, show that virtue 
and truth were on both sides. Could they have been 
brought together, the one would have supplied the de- 
fects of the other, and the result would have been for 
the glory of God and the good of man. 

The antagonism between tkm was political as well 
as religious. Into this side of the question, however, we 
may not enter except allusively. Noble souls arrayed 
themselves against one another; perhaps none are re- 
membered with greater affection than Hampden and 
Montrose, Essex and Falkland, Lord Brook and John 
Evelyn. There were moderate men, too, on both sides 
— some who warred not to defend bishops, but to avoid 
a Puritan domination, and some who fought not to se- 
cure a commonwealth, but to maintain the common 
rights against episcopal or monarchical domination. 
Nor was the war one of classes : on both sides were 
nobility, clergy, gentry, tradesmen and peasants. Both, 
also, were dauntless in courage : Essex rides off to 
Northampton carrying with him his coffin and his 
winding-sheet, together with the 'scutcheon which 
would be needed at his funeral ; Lady Derby defended 



5 34 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

Lathom house and courageously corrected the enemy's 
herald when he read the summons to surrender. " You 
should have said ' the cruelty of Parliament,' " observed 
the countess. — " No," the man answered ; " the mercy 
of Parliament." — " The mercies of the wicked are 
cruel," said the lady, with a quiet smile. So at 
Edgehill that fervent royalist Sir Jacob Astley cried, 
" Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. 
If I forget thee, do not thou forget me. — March on, 
boys !" At Thame the hero of Chalgrove, John Hamp- 
den, exclaimed in his dying agony, " O Lord, save my 
country !" Thus the conscientiousness which divided 
the nation into two hosts gave neither the sole posses- 
sion of devotion and courage. Both fought well, both 
died well. Bitter toward each other and intolerant of 
each other's views, they both thought themselves de- 
fenders of the faith, champions of the liberties of Eng- 
land and servants of God. 

Of morals both Anglican and Puritan regarded his 
opponent destitute. On the one side were drunken, 
game-loving cavaliers and curates; on the other, self- 
righteous, pharisaical hypocrites. The one sang songs, 
enjoyed feasting, danced, hunted and was afraid of 
nothing so much as to be thought a Puritan ; the 
other avoided gayety, frequented sermons, droned out 
psalms, dressed gravely, and dreaded naught so much 
as the suspicion of being an Anglican. There was a 
mutual desire to get as far away from each other as 
possible, and by this desire many were forced into ex- 
tremes of life and conduct which neither their tastes 
sanctioned nor their conscience approved. It was the 
fault of Heaven that they breathed the same air and 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 535 

trod the same ground. Yet when they lost sight of 
this foolish hatred, in the hearts of both Cavalier and 
Roundhead the grace of God prevailed and showed 
itself in commendable lives and pure homes. The one 
was not the frivolous, wicked, profane wretch, and the 
other was not the austere, sour, unearthly sinner, that 
men thought them. Both were really in their better 
moments trying to live a holy life, banishing from their 
actions, words and thoughts all that was derogatory to 
the glory of the King whose servants they professed to 
be. The forbidding exterior either of untimely mirth 
or of uncalled-for severity was not all : the soul was 
enriched with true manliness, salutary fear, honor and 
truth. Like an eastern window of a cathedral in the 
early morning, looked at from without it appears full 
of deformities and blotches, a mass of darkened absurd- 
ity fantastically set in the wickered Gothic ; looked at 
from within, the sunshine is tinged with the ruby and 
green and gold and violet, figures of wondrous beauty 
appear, and where everything seemed discordant all is 
harmony — the morning light woven into a very poem 
of such sweet grace that in adoring raptures the soul is 
lifted up from the earthly temple to the heavenly sanc- 
tuary above. In one home was the earnest and devout 
Colonel Hutchinson; in the other, the pure and dainty 
Dorothy Osborne. 

That the Puritan lacked sympathy with nature is not 
altogether true. Intense religiosity too often creates a 
subjectivity and a love of introspection which alienate 
the mind from the surrounding world, but this spirit was 
an excrescence, and not a legitimate development of 
either system. The normal Puritan saw nature setting 



536 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

forth the glory of his God in such a way that from his 
heart continually arose the sacrifice of praise. Instead 
of being morose and miserable, he breathed the happy, 
joyous air of a paradise of delights. We may picture 
him, a yeoman, in his rough homespun garments, with 
his Bible in his hand, traversing one of those glorious 
woodland walks so common in England and meditating 
upon the rich imagery of the Israelitish prophets, yet 
ever and anon glancing at the still richer expression of 
God's power and love around him — upon the great mossy 
arms of giant elms entwined overhead in an arch grander 
than a minster's vaulted roof, upon the green sward by 
the roadside blooming with its wild flowers and bounded 
in by thick hedges snowy with the hawthorn-blossom 
and alive with the song of merry birds, and then down 
the valley to the little brook where the willows grow 
upon the brink and amid the flags and rushes, the home 
of the kingfisher and the wild duck, and where in days 
gone by he used to cast a line into the limpid stream and 
shout for joy when he landed carp or tench or perch or 
pike. If he trembled at the thought of man's wicked- 
ness and God's wrath when the thunder rolled along the 
hills, he also rejoiced when he saw the golden, saffron 
glory of the setting sun and thought of the land of rest 
beyond. He was not dry. or unreal, only a man with a 
sober mind and an earnest soul, living from day to day 
as one to whom eternity was real and the things unseen 
were visible. His home was the abode of purity and 
contentment — a dim but true foreshadowing of the better 
home for which his highest duty was to prepare himself 
and his family. He looked upon his brave boys, Valiant- 
for-Truth, Zeal-of-the-Lord and Win-the- Fight, and his 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 537 

fair, rosy Patience with loving pride and anxious heart ; 
and though he warned them to have naught to do with 
Anglicans, Quakers or Anabaptists, but to avoid all their 
evil ways and vain imaginations, he also guarded them 
against vice and crime, against shame, dishonor and the 
wiles of Satan. His abstinence from profane oath and 
unhallowed jest, his plainness of attire and dislike of 
outward pomp and show, his delight in the Sabbath, his 
reverence for the sacred Scriptures and his realization of 
the presence of God made him a witness for righteous- 
ness. He trembled when James I. in the famous and 
unfortunate proclamation of May 24, 1618, "signified 
his pleasure that after the end of divine service on the 
Lord's day the good people should indulge themselves 
in lawful sports, such as dancing, archery, leaping, vault- 
ing, May-games, Whitsun-ales, morris-dances, and such 
like." It was enough to see the clergy wear the " rag of 
popery," to hear the words of the Book of Common 
Prayer and to witness the multitude of meaningless 
ceremonies, but such desecration of the holy day was 
beyond sufferance. This, however, was by no means all. 
Of course the Puritan was narrow and intolerant ; most 
men were in those days. In England he objected to the 
clergy using the surplice ; when he got to Amsterdam, 
he denounced the women for wearing cork heels and 
whalebone corsets. He complained of the large-hearted- 
ness of the Church in claiming as her children both the 
good and the bad, and making the ignorant and the 
vicious, the publican and the harlot, equally with the 
wisest and best of her sons, the objects of her care. No 
wonder, said he, such a Church was corrupt and formal ; 
no wonder, therefore, he condemned and struggled 



53$ READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

against her. And he had the courage of his convictions. 
He was as dauntless as were his opponents. Finding 
the ideal of a pure and sinless community impossible in 
England, some fled to the Continent and sought a home 
there. Then, again failing, they determined to cross the 
Atlantic and build a sanctuary in the wilderness. A 
company was formed, permission from the king was 
obtained, and two small vessels — one of one hundred 
and eighty tons and the other of sixty tons — were 
chartered. About one hundred and twenty persons, 
men, women and children, crossed over from Holland to 
Southampton ; thence they sailed, but the smaller ship 
leaked so badly that it had to be abandoned at Plymouth. 
Then, on the sixth day of September, 1620, the little 
Mayflower, with its burden of heavy, hopeful hearts, 
turned its prow to the Western waves. One by one the 
cold gray bulwarks of England dropped out of sight; 
by night the ship was alone in the great Atlantic. Two 
months passed before the emigrants saw land again ; 
another month ere they reached the harbor to which was 
given the name of " Plymouth." On the ever-memorable 
eleventh of December they went ashore and began the 
settlement of the new England. What they suffered 
that winter imagination only can suggest — hunger, sick- 
ness, fatigue, death. When April came, the Mayflower 
sailed away, the blue waves rolled in unbroken to the 
beach, twenty full-grown men, a few true-hearted women 
and some tender children remained ; at the end of the 
short street were the graves of the loved ones who had 
perished that winter, and beyond them was the perilous 
and illimitable wilderness. A small beginning ; the re- 
sult, the majesty of a nation and the triumph of freedom. 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 539 

The Puritans on the western side differed not from the 
Puritans on the eastern side of the Atlantic. They all 
desired to worship God as they pleased ; they were also 
determined that within their bounds their pleasure alone 
should be observed. When churchman or Quaker ven- 
tured among them, he found no liberty for his conscience. 
It was either conformity or banishment. Many a long 
day had to pass before religious freedom touched New 
England ; then, when the Puritan of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut came into contact with the Episcopalian of 
Virginia and the Friend of Pennsylvania, he learned that 
the Church is greater than a sect and the nation more 
than a school. In England both Anglican and Puritan 
lost their identity before that lesson was mastered. 

Archbishop Laud persecuted the Puritans with the 
same unsparing severity that the Puritans afterward 
exercised toward Anglicans. His character has been 
vehemently disputed. That he was conscientious, anx- 
ious to do good and pure and devout in his life his 
enemies must allow; but his friends also must admit 
that his zeal lacked discretion, that his treatment of 
opponents was unnecessarily bitter and harsh, and that 
he too often displayed a narrowness of mind and an 
irritable anxiety for the observance of small things. He 
was too much a disciplinarian to be either a mystic or 
an ascetic. Unlike the Puritans, he did not care to com- 
pel men to think alike, but was one with them in insist- 
ing upon uniformity of action. If the Puritan iecognized 
no Church in which pure doctrine as the Puritan de- 
fined it was not preached, neither did Laud admit the 
validity of any that were not under the control of bishops. 
He loved a high ritual, and held that the king and his 



540 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

prelates alone have authority in settling religious dis- 
putes. Yet he maintained, as at the conference with the 
Jesuit Fisher, May 24, 1622, that beyond the Scriptures 
and the Creeds there were no infallible or irreversible 
decisions ; even the sentences of general councils were 
like acts of Parliament — open to examination and liable 
to be repealed. He would have order, but he was against 
the conscience being tied to the Church and against 
rigid dogmatism. Full of fire, pushing energy and 
devotion to his principles, he made his way at Oxford, 
till in 161 1 he became president of St. John's College 
and a source of much irritation to the Puritan authorities 
of the university. Five years later he was made dean 
of Gloucester, and began to " set things in order " by 
removing the table from the body of the church to the 
chancel and by commanding the cathedral officers to 
bow to it when they entered the church. His success 
there induced James I. in 1621 to appoint him bishop 
of St. David's; in 1626 he was translated to Bath and 
Wells; in 1628, to London; and in 1633, to Canterbury. 
Exalted to this great dignity, he proceeded vigorously 
to correct the negligence of the clergy. In his visita- 
tions he found many churches in ill-repair, untidy and 
slovenly served. He directed the altar-wise position of 
the communion-table to be kept, rails to be set around 
it to keep out dogs and profane persons, the people to 
receive the sacrament kneeling thereat, and certain 
decent and comely ceremonies to be observed in the 
ministration. The Puritan clergy objected to the terms 
now introduced of " altar," " adoration " and " genuflec- 
tion," nor did they wish to be tied down to a close and 
unyielding ritual; but the archbishop had neither fear 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 54 1 

nor foresight and knew nothing of conciliation. He was 
determined " to make men learn to be decent by acting 
decently, and to be religious by acting religiously." If 
they would not obey, they must suffer the inconve- 
niences of excommunication and the consideration of 
the Star Chamber. Nor did he stop at ritual : morals 
also came under his notice. Without respect of persons, 
he condemned the rich and powerful as well as the poor 
and helpless for wrong-doing. Never was ruler so des- 
titute of tact or expediency. He had one idea — a very 
small one — and in season or out of season, without 
thinking of wisdom or folly, he thrust it forward. In 
a little while he was the most thoroughly hated man in 
England. Like his master, Charles I., he utterly failed 
to read the signs of the times. Even when the Puritans 
took up arms, neither king nor archbishop discerned the 
gravity of the situation or dreamed of the possibility of 
failure. They suffered the chances for concession and 
peace to pass by, considering themselves strong in the 
righteousness of their own hearts and in the justice of 
their own cause, and refusing to think well of men of 
the stamp of Prynne, Burton and Bastwick. 

As soon as the Long Parliament met it impeached and 
imprisoned the archbishop ; in 1643 he was brought to 
trial. With great courage and ability he defended him- 
self against the charges of high treason and " of a design 
to bring in popery ;" posterity has admitted his defence 
to be satisfactory, but the foregone conclusion was 
reached. On January 4, 1645, the Lords agreed with 
the Commons that the archbishop should die ; the king's 
pardon was held to be worthless, and six days later the 
old prelate of threescore and twelve years was taken to 



542 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

execution. On the scaffold, with wonderful composure 
and touching pathos, he addressed the assembled spec- 
tators. He had come, he said, to the brink of the Red 
Sea, but before he entered the land of promise the pass- 
over must be eaten, and that with sour herbs. He hoped 
that his cause in heaven would look of another dye than 
the color that was put upon it on earth. He declared 
that he was as quiet within as he ever was in his life. 
" This poor Church of England," he continued, " that 
hath flourished and been a shelter to other neighboring 
churches when storms have driven upon them — now, 
alas ! it is in a storm itself, and God knows whether or 
how it shall get out ; and, which is worse than a storm 
from without, it is become like an oak cleft to shivers 
with wedges made of its own body." Then, desiring the 
people to unite with him in prayer, he knelt down, and 
at a given signal his head was at one blow struck off. 
His friends decently interred the remains, reading over 
his grave the solemn office of the Church he had loved 
so well. 

A black day was that in the annals of England, but 
the Puritan's turn had come, and darker days were in 
store. Four years later Charles himself stood a pris- 
oner before the Commons ; his condemnation followed 
as a matter of course. On the twenty-ninth day of 
January, 1649, ne mounted the scaffold before his own 
palace of Whitehall. Around him were the soldiers of 
the Parliament ; beyond them were the people who still 
loved him and had it been possible would have saved 
him. " I die," said he, " a martyr for the liberties of the 
people of England." — "There is but one stage more," 
said his friend, Bishop Juxon, as he pushed his flowing 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 543 

hair under his cap, " which, though turbulent and trou- 
blesome, is yet a very short one. Consider, it will carry 
you a great way, even from earth to heaven." — " I go," 
the king replied, " from a corruptible to an incorruptible 
crown where no disturbance can take place." He laid 
his head upon the block, gave the signal, and with one 
blow the military despots robbed England of its king. 
The body was taken to Windsor Castle. On the day 
of the funeral, says the chronicler, " the afternoon had 
been clear and bright till the corpse was carried out of 
the hall, when snow began to fall so fast and thick that 
by the time it entered the west end of the royal chapel 
the black velvet pall was entirely white — the color of 
innocency. ' So went our king white to his grave,' said 
the sorrowing servants of Charles I." The Puritans re- 
fused to allow the burial-service of the Church to be 
used, and so, " without either singing or saying," the 
martyred monarch was laid in the vault beside Henry 
VIII. and Jane Seymour. 

The king and the archbishop dead, Puritanism was 
supreme ; but, unfortunately, Puritanism was now rep- 
resented by its army. For a while Parliament spoke 
and the people murmured, but the soldiers held all 
power. They were a motley crew of enthusiasts, Inde- 
pendents, Presbyterians and Anabaptists, one in their 
purpose to break up the Church of England and to 
maintain their own power. The Book of Common 
Prayer was proscribed.; bishops and clergy were ex- 
pelled from their dignities and benefices, and severe 
punishments were enacted for such as refused the Cal- 
vinistic worship. Lord Macaulay's words are well 
known : " It was a crime for a child to read by the 



544 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

bedside of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects 
which had soothed the grief of forty generations of 
Christians." Many of the clergy died in foreign lands, 
some in prison; others lived of the charity of their 
former parishioners. The churches were desecrated ; 
the windows and organs were broken, tombs were rifled, 
communion-tables and fonts were profaned and surplices 
were torn to pieces. Even the most sacred rites were 
parodied. But why recall shameful indecencies and 
shocking blasphemies ? To name them is to cause the 
blood to curdle. The Church was overthrown, cast 
down, trampled under foot and covered with dust and 
blood ; but she too had noble souls who knew how to 
suffer and were not afraid to die. 

At the head of this army was one called Oliver — a 
hero and a saint, according to some authorities ; a scoun- 
drel and a hypocrite, according to others. Probably the 
truth concerning him will be found equidistant from both 
opinions. Early in the war between king and Parlia- 
ment he hastened to the aid of the latter with a troop 
gathered largely from among his Huntingdonshire neigh- 
bors — " a lovely company," he writes ; " no Anabaptists, 
but honest, sober Christians." Valiant deeds did this 
troop accomplish — deeds which won for Oliver the 
sobriquet of " Ironsides " and by 1644 made him prac- 
tically commander-in-chief of the Puritan army and 
leader of the Puritan party. Soon he surrounded him- 
self with the most pronounced and unquestionable inde- 
pendents in the country, refusing association with the 
moderate, or Presbyterian, wing of the rebellion. Not- 
withstanding his sharp and untunable voice and his ordi- 
nary apparel, by his fervor, keen perception, knowledge 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 545 

of human nature and bravery he made himself and his 
friends masters of England and controllers of her life 
and her policy. The removal of the king he considered 
absolutely necessary. " I tell you," said he to Algernon 
Sidney, " we will cut off his head with the crown on it." 
Onward and upward he moved, intense in feeling and 
earnest in principle, fully persuaded as he ever had been 
of the sole and complete righteousness of the religious 
school to which he belonged, and combining a decided 
godliness with a no less decided worldly wisdom. Fur- 
ther honors awaited him. " I have not sought these 
things," he declares ; " truly, I have been called into 
them by the Lord." Relentlessly he fought in Ireland, 
scarcely less so in Scotland. His victories in the field 
and in Parliament won him the praise of his friends. 
" Great things God has done by you in war, and good 
things men expect from you in peace," wrote one to 
him, " to break in pieces the oppressor, to ease the op- 
pressed of their burdens, to release the prisoners out of 
bonds and to relieve poor families with bread." When 
secure enough in the command and the affection of the 
army, in 1652, he dissolved the Long Parliament. Five 
or six files of musketeers was all the force needed ; the 
speaker left his chair, the members went home and the 
mace was taken away. This drastic measure met with 
general approval and excited great expectations. Then, 
in the name of " Oliver Cromwell, captain-general and 
commander-in-chief," a new Parliament was called. It 
met — all " persons fearing God and of approved fidelity 
and honesty;" quickly it found that he who called also 
ruled, and it resigned. Then the soldiers " urged " 
Oliver to take the supreme government — some said, 
35 



546 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

with the title of king, which was refused — and Decem- 
ber, 1 6, 1653, he was installed as lord protector. 

To confirm this settlement, another Parliament was 
summoned the following September. It refused to accept 
a ruler named by the army ; whereupon ninety members 
were promptly and in one batch excluded from the house. 
The rest proving obstinate, in January, Oliver sent them 
all home, and twenty months passed before the people 
were again represented at Westminster. In the autumn 
of 1656 a more select and subservient Parliament ten- 
dered him both money and kingship. The power of a 
monarch he had ; the title he styled " a feather in the 
hat," and the crown " a shining bauble for crowds to 
gaze at." However, he consented to be a second time 
installed as lord protector. The ceremony took place 
June 26, 1657, and Oliver was robed in purple and ermine 
and presented with a golden sceptre ; he was also em- 
powered by Parliament to name his successor, and to 
appoint the members of the newly-erected second cham- 
ber. But by the following February this obsequious 
Parliament began to differ from the Lord Protector, and 
it was suddenly dissolved. " I would have been glad," 
said Cromwell, " to have lived under my woodside, to 
have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertake such 
a government as this." It soon brought him to his 
grave. 

During these years the voice of the people was un- 
heard ; an army, and not a Parliament, held the reins of 
power. The autocracy of Oliver, supported by that 
army, was complete ; no king reigned as he reigned. 
He was absolute, despotic, personal. There was no 
shadow of republicanism in his administration. Rather 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 547 

than a hastener of modern democracy and of popular 
rights, he was the embodiment of the worst features of 
monarchism. Not one of the Stuarts ventured upon the 
arbitrary course in which he excelled ; not one of the 
Stuarts could hold the people in the same remorseless 
subjection. That Cromwell regarded himself the founder 
of a dynasty, and not the president of a commonwealth, 
is shown by the care he took to secure for his family the 
position he held, the accumulation of privileges around 
that position and the appointment of his own son as his 
successor. That he was not indifferent to honors is 
proven by his anxiety to have his own resting-place 
among the kings in Westminster Abbey. Therefore 
both royalists and republicans plotted for his overthrow. 
They wrote scurrilous pamphlets against him ; they 
sought his murder. But in vain. The man violated 
every principle of constitutional government, was am- 
bitious and self-willed : he was also a hero. 

And it is to the honor of Oliver Cromwell that he 
governed well. Abroad he secured a glory for England 
which she had not since the days of Cardinal Wolsey. 
Even Clarendon admits that his greatness at home was a 
mere shadow to his greatness abroad. His ambition, says 
Burnet, was to make the name of Englishman as great as 
ever that of Roman had been. He defended the cause 
of the Vaudois and made all Europe fear his prowess. 
In England much was done to further justice and to 
advance morality. Puritanism had free course, no Star 
Chamber, no bishop and no clergy or courtiers to stand 
in its way. It seized upon Archbishop Laud's policy 
with fatal avidity : men were to be made good by being 
forced to act good. They were no longer permitted to 



54§ READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

dance around the Maypole, to frequent plays, to have 
races, boxing-matches, cockfights or games, and least 
of all to keep Christmas and eat mince-pies. Instead of 
services, they should have sermons ; bell-ringings, wakes, 
holidays and harvest-homes should be abolished, and the 
people should be taught the delightsomeness of three- 
hour admonitions, and of prayers measured by the sand- 
glass and fashioned according to the will of the utterer. 
Thus the nation was forced to put on a sober face, what- 
ever it may have felt in its heart ; none saw the subter- 
ranean vices, follies and longings pent up, waiting for an 
outlet and gathering force for a terrific explosion. In 
this lay the weakness of Puritanism. It utterly failed 
to make allowances for that large multitude who cannot 
think or feel according to prescription, and whose hearts, 
honest and true enough otherwise, have a wrinkle of 
merriment and a spice of humor. Cromwell had no 
sympathy whatever for religious systems which consid- 
ered the infirmities of human nature. He did not despise 
surplices because they were white, but because they were 
associated with churches in which the lighter side of 
human life was recognized as God-made. He held, as 
the old ascetics held, that man ought to live seriously 
and severely. With the utmost care he would scarcely 
be saved ; after the most rigid observance of the laws of 
God he would be unworthy the favor of God. Hence 
no Anglican was suffered to speak; no Quaker was 
allowed to keep silence : if they would not conform, 
they must endure the penalty. Did not Israel spoil the 
Egyptians and Elijah slay the priests of Baal ? But, this 
sourness and severity aside, England was all the better 
for a master such as Cromwell. He would be obeyed, 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 549 

and in his courts justice was administered. He claimed 
to rule in the name of the Lord, and said and did noth- 
ing except under the guise of religion. That he was 
sincere is probable : his life and his death were con- 
sistent. 

Our forefathers never failed to trace a connection be- 
tween extraordinary celestial or atmospheric phenomena 
and the great events which happen among men. The 
coincidences have certainly been many. A total eclipse 
was an omen of terrible evil ; at the sight of a comet 

" the people stand aghast : 
But the sage Wisard telles, as he has redd, 
That it importunes death and doleful dreryhedd." 

In the April of 1066 such a "blazing star" appeared. 
Men looked with awe upon a mighty mass of flame that 
streamed across the southern heavens, and felt that some 
catastrophe was nigh. Before the year closed, William 
of Normandy defeated Harold on the field of Senlac and 
before the altar of the West Minster was crowned king 
of the conquered nation. So with storms. The law was 
given to the Israelites amid the mighty thunderings of 
Sinai, and their request for a king was granted on a day 
of terrible tempest. Shakespeare makes the night in 
which Duncan was murdered a ni^ht of storm — a rougrh, 
unruly night. Pius IX. pronounced the dogma of pa- 
pal infallibility at a time when the lightning was playing 
among the pinnacles and domes of the Eternal City and 
the winds shook the very walls of St. Peter. And when 
Cromwell lay dying, a raging storm swept the land 
which he had ruled in the fear of God. People had 
never known so great a storm. Three days its roar 



550 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

was heard from one end of the realm to the other. Trees 
and houses were overthrown, and many persons were 
in fear of their lives. In its wild wrath it lashed the 
ocean till the breaking billows spread a broad fringe of 
foam around the island-empire, strewing the shore with 
wrecks and making the great rocks tremble. It seemed 
as though the very elements were in league with the 
dying man in Whitehall and had amassed all their 
strength to rescue him from the grim monster. But 
when the finger of death touches either the violet in 
the dell or the oak in the forest, the end comes. The 
uncrowned king, the dethroner of monarchs, the fear of 
Europe, bent ; then he cried, "lama conqueror, and 
more than a conqueror, through Christ that strengtheneth 
me." In his pains he murmured again and again, " God 
is good ;" in his faith he besought the Lord to " make 
the name of Christ glorious in the world." The storm 
began to wear away; the sun of September 3, 1658, the 
thanksgiving-day for the victories of Dunbar and Wor- 
cester, arose, and in the afternoon the weary one entered 
into his rest : the pitcher was broken at the fountain, and 
the wasting wind uttered its low sob as it passed across 
the southern downs, the fenland wilds, the hills of 
ancient Deira and the moors and mountains of the 
Borean realm. A fit ending to such a life ! Then they 
buried him " amongst kings and with a more than regal 
solemnity " in the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster. 
With the death of .Cromwell passed away the Puritan 
supremacy. The force had worn itself out ; the fire had 
burnt itself away. Two or three short years, and the 
king and clergy had their own again. The people wel- 
comed them with rejoicings. Once more the church- 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 55 I 

bells rang for service according to the ancient rites; 
the hallowed words of litany and of liturgy were heard 
in the cathedrals and the sanctuaries ; bishops went back 
to their sees and priests to their parishes, and soon things 
were as though Puritan had never been. But, alas ! An- 
glicanism had not learned by suffering the grace of toler- 
ation. The triumph of revenge broke out. Even gentle 
souls like John Evelyn and Izaak Walton became stern 
and cold when they thought of Roundheads, Fifth-Mon- 
archy Men, Levellers, and the like. They sanctioned the 
doing unto Puritanism all that Puritanism had done unto 
them. Not one tittle less ; if possible, a little more. So 
Cromwell was thrown out of his grave ; two thousand 
Puritan ministers were deprived of their parishes ; attend- 
ance at church was made compulsory, and the Act of 
Uniformity became law. The Puritans offered no terms ; 
they had suffered, reigned, triumphed, lost, and they 
could suffer again. The time-serving Pepys observes, " I 
saw several poor creatures carried by by constables for 
being at a conventicle. They go like lambs, without any 
resistance. I would to God they would either conform 
or be more wise and not. be catched !" 

Thus it is that when one thinks of the rule of Crom- 
well one needs to remember John Milton, Richard 
Baxter, John Hampden, Hutchinson, Sibbes and Flavelle ; 
and when one reads of the reign of Charles II., to recall 
Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Ken, Peter Gunning and John 
Cosin. But for such as these, the times would be dark- 
ness unrelieved and both parties unworthy of remem- 
brance. 

During this era were born two men antagonistic to 
both Anglicanism and Puritanism, but destined to help 



552 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

both systems to a truer appreciation of the kindlier 
graces of Christianity and to a mutual understanding, 
and even to brotherly love. 

George Fox brought out more clearly the truth of the 
spirituality of religion — the independence, to return to a 
figure earlier used in this chapter, of the kernel and the 
shell. Whether it were the husk of ritual, organization 
or history or the husk of formalism, doctrine or experi- 
ence, neither was the real, essential thing necessary to 
salvation and to the union of the soul to God. Nor did 
man receive light from these. There was an indwelling 
Spirit unconnected with sacraments or Scriptures, free 
from ecclesiastical or doctrinal systems, guiding men 
into truth and holiness. This illuminating, controlling 
Power taught the meaning both of the word and of 
Christian experience ; it gave ministry, life, knowledge, 
consolation, purity, directly and without human help ; it 
made the individual utter things that were of heaven, infal- 
lible, divine and eternal. The truth was indeed pressed to 
the point of imperilling other truths, but the world beheld 
the growth of a society of singularly gentle, holy, con- 
sistent and earnest people from whose assemblies all 
ritual and from whose principles all dogmatism were 
carefully excluded. They were peaceful and patient, 
almost passively suffering that Spirit in which they 
believed to bring forth in their lives his own fruits of 
righteousness. In their homes and in their meeting- 
houses the extreme of plainness prevailed ; for music 
they cared little, and for honors, pleasures and triumphs 
still less. Even oratory met with small favor from them ; 
they agreed with Richard Hooker : " Our safest elo- 
quence concerning Him is our silence." Thus they 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 553 

were living witnesses of the verity of the Unseen; 
their conduct proved the freedom and the universality 
of grace. Why, then, should Canterbury and Geneva 
fight for trifles ? 

But thoughts and practices such as these are not got 
into the world without much labor and suffering. Fox 
was an innocent, honest countryman, born at Drayton, 
in Leicestershire, in July, 1 624, courteous, unaffected, 
tender and merciful. From his childhood he was devout 
and serious, baptized and attending the ministrations at 
his parish church. In early manhood he began to con- 
sider more deeply the state of his soul. He grew dis- 
tressed and perplexed about many things, and, though 
he went to both Anglican and Puritan, neither was able 
to help him. " I saw," he writes, " there was none among 
them all that could speak to my condition." Was there 
any in the wide world ? " When all my hopes in them, and 
in all men, were gone, . . . then — oh, then — I heard a voice 
which said, ' There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak 
to thy condition ;' and when I heard it, my heart did leap 
for joy." Years passed before he had peace in believing ; 
then in 1647 he began to preach. People listened; many 
scoffed, but some believed. He declared himself a proph- 
et ; he could not hold his peace. His " heart was hot with- 
in him, and at last he spake with his tongue." Then 
came persecution — the Puritan first, and the Anglican 
after; both equally severe. With painful monotony 
every two or three years from 1650 to 1675 he was 
lodged in prison ; between-times he ceased not to cry 
aloud. Discreet he was not ; such as he never are. Had 
he been, he would have escaped much suffering. More 
than once he positively provoked punishment, as at Not- 



554 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

tingham, where in the parish church he rose up and 
contradicted the preacher. But his enthusiasm enabled 
him to " rejoice in tribulation " and won for him many 
converts. Among these were such men as Ellwood, 
Barclay and Penn — proof sufficient of his power, integrity 
and success. He died in 1690; his society abides to this 
day, and from it the world is gathering the example of 
toleration, honor, simplicity and peace. 

The story of John Bunyan has a beauty rare and 
unique. He, too, was moved by deep soul-thoughts, 
and lived as one who saw the things that angels desire 
to look into and cannot. To him, as to Fox, the great 
religious parties of the age were of no use. He was 
born at Elstow in 1628, and died in London in 1688. 
How he passed from death unto life, his spiritual con- 
flicts, his touching experience, his victories for God, need 
not here be told. He suffered, but he taught men the 
greatness of Christ, the supremacy of his glory and the 
grandeur of his love. The Lord of the Church is greater 
than the Church, and the Founder of the faith is above 
the faith. But the highest truths can be held within 
the bounds of organization and under the definitions of 
doctrine ; therefore Bunyan believed in a ministry, in 
sacraments and in discipline. The faithful needed to be 
edified as well as the ungodly to be converted. So he 
preached free grace, maintained order and decorum, and 
visited his people with faithfulness and authority. Against 
episcopacy and Presbyterianism he protested, yet with 
his large-heartedness he loved all who in sincerity and 
in truth loved and served the one Lord. 

But Bunyan's ministry to the world is in the Pilgrim's 
Progress — next to the Bible, the best loved, the most catho- 



THE PURITAN SUPREMACY. 555 

lie, the widest known, of books. Even as the world ac- 
knowledges the literary excellence of that work, so does 
the Church recognize its spiritual charm. With the Con- 
fessions of St. Augustine and the Imitatio Christi it forms 
the trinity of uninspired books of which man will never 
tire. So broad is its sympathy, so true is its delineation 
of character and experience, so full of the spirit of all 
truth, that people who can agree upon nothing else are 
one in their appreciation and praise of it. There is not 
from beginning to end a single party-line. Even Roman- 
ists, after expunging the allusion to the pope, delight to 
read it. Anglicans and Puritans find in it the expression 
of their truest emotions and thoughts. They can forget 
their differences as they journey with Christian from 
the City of Destruction to the King's Land. Together 
they love to linger at the Interpreter's House, with the 
sisters of the Palace Beautiful and the shepherds of the 
Delectable Mountains, and upon the banks of the river 
beyond which lies the Celestial City. In Beulah-land 
they even forget articles and confessions and differences 
fade away. For is not this the way in which both are 
pilgrims ? And is not the one Lord the Lord of both ? 
Thus by his mystic charm has the tinker of Bedford 
helped to bring into harmony the multitudes of readers 
in both parties. From his living pages both Puritan and 
Anglican have learned that there is, after all, but " one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism." They may not desire to 
live in the one house together, but they are willing to 
love each other as brethren, and some day they may find 
that the Church is large enough for all. 

Nay, does either of the old schools live to-day ? Has 
not the work of such men as George Fox and John 



556 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

Bunyan so changed them that their identity has been 
destroyed ? Is not the Church of the nineteenth century 
made up of people who in their own lives represent the 
noblest and the best principles of both parties ? Will 
it be possible for the seventeenth century to live again ? 
These are questions not difficult to answer. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

&§t j5totg anir Spirit of tije ^rager^Uooft. 

Of the many millions of Christians now in the world, 
nine-tenths have a liturgical form of service; and of 
these, twenty-five millions use the Book of Common 
Prayer. This of itself expresses the mind of the Church 
catholic that, as one should not be hasty to utter any- 
thing before God, so should his worship be done orderly, 
reverently and wisely ; it is further a proof that experi- 
ence has shown the utility in the spiritual life of prear- 
ranged forms and precomposed prayers. 

Nor is there any evidence that the early Church de- 
parted from the custom which existed in both Jewish 
and pagan temples of such services ; on the contrary, re- 
mains of the primitive liturgies have survived the ages, 
some to have their place in the New Testament and 
others to be enshrined in the Anglican book. Besides 
the portions of Holy Scripture and the Psalms which, 
having passed from the Jewish into the Christian Church, 
have been used in divine service for more than two thou- 
sand years, these fragments are redolent with the spirit- 
uality and the holiness of the remotest ages of Christi- 
anity. Augustine of Canterbury in a. d. 597 found that 
the Christians of Britain had already service-books of 
their own, and these he rearranged for use in the newly- 
formed English Church. Owing to the division of the 

557 



558 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

country into independent kingdoms and its speech into 
strange and uncultivated dialects, the books varied in 
different dioceses ; but in a. d. 1089, Osmund, bishop of 
Salisbury, brought the many Uses into one form which 
by its merits largely superseded the local books and 
held its own as the national liturgy down to the sixteenth 
century. The further lapse of five hundred years made 
change inevitable ; for one thing, out of the uncouth dia- 
lects of Britons, Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Danes and Nor- 
mans, the English language had formed itself, and was 
now both understood throughout the kingdom and capa- 
ble of expressing theological thought. Accordingly, in 
the year 1549 the Church set forth the book translated 
into the common tongue and rearranged according to 
modern needs. Further revision was made in 1552, 
again in 1559, and once more in 1662, since which time, 
with the exception of the few alterations made necessary 
in America by reason of political changes, the book has 
remained the same. 

In the book, therefore, as it is now, may be discerned 
not only the spirit of the Church, but also the workman- 
ship of some of her most renowned scholars and saints. 
Here is a line of inspired writ ingeniously and beauti- 
fully woven into the texture by some skilful hand ; here 
a phrase from some sacramentary the authorship of 
which is unknown, and here words flowing from a mar- 
tyr-soul. Now we discern the spirit-craft of a Cranmer, 
an Osmund, a Gregory and a Leo ; now we have echoes 
from far-off ages and lands — the shores and the valleys 
of ancient Scotia, Deira and Strathclyde, the basilicas 
and the sanctuaries of imperial Rome and proud Milan, the 
council-chambers of Chalcedon, Antioch and Nicea, and 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 559 

the upper rooms of the city upon the hill of Sion ; and 
each association not only recalls the past in vivid glory, 
but also indicates how closely and sympathetically the 
book is linked with the history of the Church. 

That churchmen should both treasure and love the 
Book of Common Prayer is not surprising. Its history, 
associations, spirituality and language have a charm 
which, once felt, can never pass away. No word is 
insignificant, no form without its meaning. From the 
hallowed lines flows a suggestiveness ever sweet, ever 
fresh, ever delightful. 

Take, for instance, at the outset, the title of the book. 
It is " Common," and not " Family" or " Private," prayer. 
It is not for one class only, but for all sorts and con- 
ditions of men, containing the desires, hopes and praises 
which they have in common, and teaching them as chil- 
dren of the one Father to come together and worship 
him with one accord. Nor is it for one parish or one 
diocese or one country only, but for the multitudes 
who together hold the faith once delivered to the saints. 
Thus in the lands of Eastern Asia, in India and in Ara- 
bia, in Africa, in Europe and in England, in America 
and in the islands of the great sea and of Australasia, as 
the earth moves to the sunlight, glad voices chant the 
hymn, " O come, let us sing unto the Lord," and faith- 
ful souls repeat in glad unison the " I believe." Thus 
friend and friend, though severed by broad oceans, can 
meet in the same worship ; the stranger can bring back 
to his heart the home-emotion and in tender memories 
find rest, and they who sail upon the mighty deep or 
serve on distant battlefields or watch in silent sick-rooms 
can unite in the Church's common prayer and grasp with 



$60 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

vivid earnestness and sweet comfort the truth of the 
communion of saints. Nor is this all: the book is com- 
mon not only to the people of this age, but also to those 
of the ages past. The men of the last century, the men 
of the seventeenth century and the men of the Reforma- 
tion-era used the book even as it is now used, and so 
in substance, too, did they who lived in the days of 
Plantagenets and Normans, in the days of Danish and 
Saxon kings and of Mercian and Northumbrian princes. 
A thousand years ago, and the words that are still said 
for the same purpose made of one flesh the man and 
the wife of Anglo-Saxon race. A thousand years ago, 
and from the lips of converts fell the same Apostles' 
and Nicene Creeds which are to-day repeated. A 
thousand years ago, and in minster choir and cathe- 
dral sanctuary, and in forest-glade and on hillside, 
Christian people sang the glorious Venite and the 
triumphant Te Deum. And at the setting of the sun, 
when the shades fell over wood and fen and field and 
stream, they knelt and prayed, " Lighten our darkness, 
we beseech thee, O Lord !" So are the generations 
knit together; the past is brought into the present; 
the words now used are the words used by the men 
of old, and in spite of changes and evolutions the 
unity of the Church is retained. 

Further to illustrate the plenitude of meaning, take the 
Canticles. What more sublime hymn is there, more fra- 
grant with splendid associations, richer in its notes now 
of exuberant joy and now of softened penitence, than 
the Te Deum ? Its power is mighty. Now it casts the 
soul down into the fathomless depths of the divine love, 
mercy and compassion ; now it bears the soul away in 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 56 1 

thanksgiving and adoration till it stands at the very gate 
of heaven. We see the majesty of the glory rilling all 
space ; we hear cherubim and seraphim, apostles, proph- 
ets and martyrs, praising the everlasting Father ; we lift 
up our voice with the Holy Church throughout all the 
world in acknowledging the honor and the comfort of 
the blessed Trinity. Every word seems to run over with 
power and expression ; every line fills the soul with emo- 
tions which seem to belong to the Church triumphant 
rather than to the Church militant. An unnoticed word 
which is winning its way back again to the American 
version of this hymn is an instance in point : " Let thy 
mercy lighten upon us." So the dove lights upon the 
ground, and, as the poets have loved to think, mercy 
stands out, not as an abstraction, a quality, but as a per- 
son, an angel winging its way from heaven to earth, hov- 
ering over man as the Holy Spirit hovered over Jesus at 
his baptism, and ready in answer to earnest prayer to light 
upon him. The word further suggests manner : " Let 
thy mercy lighten upon us," gently, lovingly, tenderly, 
dropping "as the gentle dew from heaven" with all the 
kindness and compassion of God. Let it light upon men 
as the soft sunbeams light upon the flowers and the 
wavelets, as the inoffensive dove lights upon the tree 
or ground, as the mother's word of forgiveness lights 
upon the heart of her wayward and repenting boy. 
Then shall the favored soul be glad with the assurance 
that it too shall be numbered with the saints in glory 
everlasting. 

The same thing is true of the beautiful and soothing 
Magnificat — the song of her who was the handmaid of 
the Lord, type of the Church which is humble and 

36 



562 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

meek, which has received good things and which has 
rejoiced in God the Saviour. So also of the Nunc Di- 
mittis, with its tender faith and quiet resignation. In the 
hour when the heart's desire has been fulfilled, or when 
God has come very near to the soul, or when the night 
of tribulation has passed into the day of triumph, or 
in the overshadowing of death, holy men in all ages 
have said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace " into that home where the unruly wills and affec- 
tions of sinful men disturb not and there is none to make 
afraid. 

The collects, too, are full of poetry — not, perhaps, 
winged and glorious as in these hymns, but intense, trem- 
bling, subdued, soothing. The spirit of song in the hymn 
is as the cherub robed in dazzling brightness carolling its 
joyous anthem in realms of highest glory; the spirit of 
song in the collect is as a virgin whose soul quivers with 
emotion and whose heart is filled with thoughts the voice 
cannot express. In the words of the collects there is no 
exuberance, no freedom, no hastiness, but a tranquil sweet- 
ness, a chastened sobriety, a reverent drawing near to 
God. They are beautiful with the quiet glow of warm 
and believing devotibn. Their language is forcible, 
homely, suggestive and well arranged. They seem to 
send their short sentences flashing heavenward as the 
swiftly-sped arrow pierces the clouds and the morning 
sunbeams penetrate the night-gloom. Meditation upon 
one of their expressions is like standing upon a Pisgah 
and beholding the vision of the Lord's inheritance. 
Some of them open the way to fields of rich delight and 
spiritual refreshment, where the soul wanders hither and 
thither as though in an Eden till the lightsome glad- 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 563 

ness constrains it to soar away into heaven's realm — to 
peer into the glory that like a soft cloud hangs around 
the city of the King. None can reach the depths of 
thought and consolation that lie beneath the words, " O 
God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such 
good things as pass man's understanding." Here 
has man no continuing city: his home is beyond the 
cares and joys of this life, even in the land of the many 
mansions. Nor could words be framed more fitly to 
express the want of the Christian's heart in the midst 
of earth's bewildering attractions than those of another 
collect : " That, thou being our Ruler and Guide, we 
may so pass through things temporal that we finally 
lose not the things eternal." And in a third : " That so, 
among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, 
our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys 
are to be found." Take one other illustration, this 
line from the collect for St. John the Evangelist's day : 
" Cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church." It 
is not an exultant strain, but it is none the less expres- 
sive and beautiful, and has a true rhythm, simplicity and 
suggestiveness. It reminds one of the Church sitting 
in the darkness of tribulation, dreading her future and 
weeping for her Lord — the times when the people fled 
to the mountains and took refuge in the deserts, when 
children fell into the hands of the destroyer and mar- 
tyrs poured out their blood upon the earth ; then comes 
the dawning, the rising of the Sun of righteousness, the 
approach of the Light of the world, and the glory falls 
upon her, the Day-spring from on high hath visited 
her. And who did more to manifest the light of Christ 
than St. John ? His whole Gospel is taken up with the 



564 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

setting forth of the divine glory. From beginning to 
end it is full of radiant beams — rainbows set upon clouds, 
celestial light displayed in rich and rare effulgence. The 
expression in the collect not only suggests the beauty 
of the day when the Lord looks upon the Church, but 
it also brings to mind the beloved disciple who lay his 
head upon his Master's breast, and teaches that light 
and joy can come only from close communion with the 
Lord Jesus. 

This soothing, comforting tendency, this aim to still 
the tumult and the turmoil, to allay the doubts, the 
worries and the perplexities which assail the soul, is one 
of the most delightful characteristics of the Prayer-book. 
The occasional offices bring this home forcibly. No 
greater thing can parents do for their little ones than 
to bring them to Jesus in baptism, and comforting it is 
to know that the darling love of the family is " graft- 
ed into the body of Christ's Church " and received 
into the " congregation of Christ's flock " — that God 
does not think it beneath his notice nor deem it incapa- 
ble of receiving a blessing it can neither understand nor 
appreciate. Anxieties and doubts there are, but much 
also there is to still the heart's questioning fears when the 
prayer goes up to God that this dear one, u being sted- 
fast in faith, joyful through hope and rooted in charity, 
may so pass the waves of this troublesome world that 
finally it may come to the land of everlasting life, there 
to reign with thee world without end." And when the 
years roll by and the bud of infancy has reached the 
blossom of youth, a quiet rejoicing runs through the 
parents' hearts as their loved one kneels to receive the 
laying on of hands, and the prayer is offered that he 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 565 

may continue Christ's for ever and daily increase in his 
Holy Spirit until he come unto the everlasting kingdom ! 
In life there come the days of sickness : remember the 
restfulness and the consolation of the Visitation. The 
salutation of peace, the declaration of faith, the unbur- 
dening of the soul, the authoritative assurance of forgive- 
ness, such words as " Christ himself went not up to joy, 
but first he suffered pain," tend to quiet the soul and 
prepare it for the coming change. And in the Sick 
Communion there is an appreciation of the presence of 
One unseen yet near — the comfort that comes when the 
Lord of life whispers to the soul, " Peace, be still." And 
by the side of the faithful departed how deep the com- 
fort! The veil which hangs over sacred experiences 
hides many a scene where the rites and the words of 
these offices have come to thirsty hearts like refreshing 
showers of heavenly grace. 

Turn from these to the Litany. Its impressive words, 
its passionate entreaties, its rapid changes, may be 
likened to strains of music playing through cathedral- 
aisles, now in gentle murmurs of softened melody, now 
in pealing tones of majestic might and storm-wrought 
power. Its cadences fall into the heart, at one time 
stirring it to action, at another lulling it to rest. It sends 
shade and sunshine flashing across the mind as they pass 
over the sky in spring. Now the soul seems to rest as 
the eagle rests amid the white clouds, now as the swan 
floats upon the smooth stream ; all is peace. The swift 
transitions here suggested are most distinct in the Obse- 
crations — those two sentences in which the life of our 
Lord is set forth, beginning, " By the mystery of thy 
holy Incarnation." The thoughts are carried away from 



566 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

the things of earth and the suggestion of Sinai into the 
eternal past where the soul, moved by swift currents, 
is carried into the broad sea of God's love, there to 
gaze upon the limitless expanse and to think of the 
fathomless depths. Jesus the God-man ! The more we 
think of it, the more are we bewildered. We say, " It is 
enough, Lord, that thou shouldst show us the clouds 
which hide thy splendor; we cannot look upon the 
ineffable radiance, the pure white light." And the word 
"nativity" brings us back to earth: we see a virgin- 
mother weeping tears of joy over her new-born Babe ; 
we hear the angels singing over the fields of Bethlehem ; 
we think of men from the East following the guiding 
of the star, and we remember the days in which we have 
celebrated the coming of the Prince of peace. Yet a 
word, and we are borne to the lonely wilderness to behold 
both temptations and triumphs ; and another word, and 
before us lie the shades and the sorrows of Gethsemane. 
We see the sleeping disciples and the stealthy march of 
men led on by the betrayer ; we look upon Him who in 
agony unutterable suffers pain no other mortal ever felt. 
And darker and still darker grow the shadows as in the 
unearthly gloom Calvary rises, and rocks are rent, and 
strong men tremble, and in awful silence the Redeemer, 
crowned with thorns and pierced with nails, passes into 
the Unseen, the Mysterious, the Eternal. A cross and a 
grave ! The darkness deepens ; we can almost hear the 
sobbing of the Magdalene and the heartbreaking of the 
disciples ; we can almost feel the dying of faith and the 
pangs of despair. Then suddenly, as in a tropic land, 
upon the fearful night bursts the sun-glory. In an instant, 
as with a consuming flash, Bethlehem, Gethsemane and 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. $67 

Calvary are forgotten, the manger, the cross and the 
grave fade away, and we rush into the radiance of the 
Easter-morn. Jesus lives ! Death is conquered ! Sinai's 
clouds melt into light, its terrors into joy! The Resur- 
rection casts its splendor upon the Anointed of God, its 
brightness into our hearts, its hope upon the graves 
where sleep our loved ones; and sweeter songs come 
down from heaven's realms than those which angels sang 
at the Nativity. Standing amid the glory, dazed with 
the marvellous vision, we see the risen Lord ascend 
beyond the clouds to the throne at the right hand of 
the Majesty on high, from thence to send us another 
Comforter. Verily hath the wail of sorrow passed 
swiftly into the shout of triumph — the midnight gloom 
into the meridian light! 

Perhaps nothing in the book appeals to the heart 
more than the Evening Service. Toil and perplexity 
are over : 

" For, though the^daybe never so long, 
At last the bell ringeth to evensong." 

The associations of the hour are in themselves soothing 
and restful, and especially are they so when the daylight 
is literally passing away and the long, faint shadows fall 
across nave and aisle. The golden thought is peace. 
It is felt in everything — in the Confession, that we may 
have peace with God ; in the Canticles, versicles, hymns 
and prayers, that the peace of the Most High may rest 
upon us. What additional significance is thrown into 
the ancient salutation, " The Lord be with you " ! — "with 
you, beloved, in all your tribulation and your joy, in the 
day of gladness and throughout the coming night." So 



568 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

more than three thousand years ago Boaz greeted the 
reapers, and so from earliest days has the custom existed 
in the Church. The answer, " And with thy spirit," is 
to say, " If the Lord be with thee, then is he with us." 
One can find in this loving greeting between pastor and 
people at the close of the day a suggestion of " the 
burden of Dumah." He calleth to me out of Seir, 
" Watchman, what of the night ? Watchman, what of 
the night?" The watchman said, " The morning cometh, 
x and also the night ; if ye will inquire, inquire ye : return, 
come." " The morning cometh " — yea, the morning when 
heaven's day shall dawn and the Lord shall be with his 
people ; the night cometh — the night in which no man 
can work, the night when they who have served faith- 
fully shall rest in peace. But the soothing tenderness 
of the evensong seems to culminate and abide in the 
Third Collect, " Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 
O Lord ; and by thy great mercy defend us from all 
perils and dangers of this night." " No power of our- 
selves to help ourselves " — that is the tone running 
through these ancient words — no power in the dark- 
ness that surrounds both body and soul. Poor and 
helpless, we lean upon a Father's strong arm ; defence- 
less and blind, we look to God for protection. And, 
though the state of society is such that the perils and 
the dangers of the night are not what they once were, 
yet we know not what evil may come upon us in those 
silent hours. We sleep, but " the God of Israel neither 
slumbereth nor sleepeth," and he is watching over us. 
As the words of this collect fall upon the ear there 
come echoes of the sunset-song used in the scattered 
hamlets of Chios and Mitylene: 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 569 

" O Jesu, keep me in thy sight 
And guard me through the coming night." 

Henry Francis Lyte in his days of weary sickness prayed 
that his last breath might be spent " in song that may 
not die." His prayer was granted ; his " death-song " 
will live for ever. The night came on apace, the strength 
declined, but God lightened his darkness, and the dying 
pastor gave to the Church the hymn, 

" Abide with me ; fast falls the eventide." 

Two months later, and he saw the breaking of heaven's 
morning and the fleeing of earth's shadows. The saintly 
Ken, whose hymn written for the Winchester boys is 
sung the world around, also sang, 

" Glory to thee, my God, this night," 

and the blessed Keble, with words as sweet as any : 

" Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear." 

Thus the past comes back again, and we hear the church- 
men of old praying in the eventide as we have prayed : 
" Illumina, quaesumus, Domine Deus, tenebras nostras." 
Well may the service end with benediction, for the grace 
and love and fellowship of the blessed Trinity are with 
us now, and shall be with us evermore. 

These are indications of the spirit of a book which 
through the ages has held the heart of the Church. The 
impress of the earliest days of Christianity is upon it ; 
ever and anon comes a line which fell from faithful lips 
in the days before Diocletian shed the blood of the mar- 
tyrs. And though there seem monotony, yet is there 



570 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTOR Y. 

indeed healthful variety in the changes of psalms and 
lessons, of collects, hymns and seasons. And its com- 
prehensiveness is such that each changing mood of 
thought, emotion and experience has its correlation in 
it somewhere. The joyous believer finds words of exul- 
tation, the penitent sinner words of humiliation ; they 
who are in distress discover comfort, the mourner re- 
ceives hope. The devout worshipper will always find 
as the service goes on something that will fasten itself 
to his mind and become a blessing to his soul. History 
gives many a delightful instance of this wondrous adapt- 
ability — this almost certain play of coincidence; one 
only may we recall. Before the dawn of the Wednesday 
morning of the Holy Week of the year 1 109, Anselm, 
the saintly archbishop, when nigh unto death, bade one 
read to him the office of the day. Into the still chamber 
came the sound of voices chanting the early service in 
the great church of Canterbury, and the song mingled 
its sweetness with the words of the reader. The aged 
Anselm was one who had given up much for his Lord, 
who had withstood even kings for righteousness' sake, 
and whose life of singular purity and of more than ordi- 
nary piety had been filled with tribulations. By the 
bedside the minister read on to the Gospel — the same 
which is even now used — and as he read he came to the 
passage, " Ye are they which have continued with me in 
my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as 
my Father hath appointed unto me, so that ye may eat 
and drink at my table." As the words were uttered the 
dying man breathed more slowly. The reader stopped ; 
the morning light came through the eastern windows, 
and Anselm passed into the presence of his Lord. They 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 57 1 

who know what he had suffered at the hands of Wil- 
liam Rufus will readiest discern the significance of 
the message which assured him of Christ's reward. It 
is not only the lofty and beautiful diction of the Prayer- 
Book " which sounds in the ear like solemn music from 
a higher and better world," but it is also the spirituality, 
the sublime emotions, the chastened thought, which lift 
up the heart till it seems to mingle its worship with the 
worship of those who stand before the throne — the calm 
submission, exultant joy and tender love which mark 
the service of the temple where with cherubim and sera- 
phim as with one voice the saints lift up their song, " My 
soul doth magnify the Lord." 

When one thinks of the Book of Common Prayer in 
its present form — that is to say, of the work of the 
learned and godly men who gathered into it the devo- 
tions of ages — one remembers an old legend told so ex- 
quisitely by Matthew Arnold. In distant days, and in 
that land across the sea whence comes this peerless 
treasure, a Saxon fisherman used to watch the dull, dim 
shadow of cathedral walls rising incomplete from the 
marsh beyond the hut. There day after day he beheld 
" the minster's outlined mass." But one night when he 
looked, behold ! to his surprise, the misty, shapeless 
thing became alight with glory, vivid and brilliant, 
finished and transfigured : 

" Lo ! in a sudden all the pile is bright, 
Nave, choir and transept glorified with light, 
While tongues of fire on coign and carving play ; 
And heavenly odors fair 
Come streaming with the floods of glory in, 
And carols float along the happy air, 
As if the reign of joy did now begin. 



572 READINGS IN CHURCH HISTORY. 

O Saxon fisher, thou hast had with thee 
The Fisher from the Lake of Galilee !" 

Nor can one doubt that the men from whose hands we 
receive this book accomplished their labors, as they 
themselves declared, " by the aid of the Holy Ghost." 
There lay the material — precious, indeed, but needing a 
new shape, coming out of the misty depths of a remote 
antiquity, as the fisherman saw the cathedral arise out 
of the forest, and under the divine guidance they con- 
structed a book which for beauty of language, wealth 
of devotion and depth of grace is unequalled except by 
the Bible itself, and which in marvellous fulness and 
tender relief sets forth the prayers and the praises which 
have soothed the griefs and heightened the joys of many 
generations of Christians. More to us is it than even 
the splendor of a Westminster or the grandeur of a Can- 
terbury. By it our fathers approached the throne of 
grace and received the hallowed rites of religion ; by it 
the Church, as a tender mother, teaches her children 
how best they may worship and serve him, the high 
and holy One. 

The Book of Armagh records that two daughters of a 
king once desired of St. Patrick the story of the cross. 
The words he gave them woke a strange longing in the 
girls' hearts, and they asked to see the face of Christ. 
" Ye cannot," said he, " see the face of Christ save ye 
taste of death and take the sacrifice of the Lord." So 
they bade him give them the holy sacrament, and then 
they slept in death. And what is the thought that 
comes to the devout churchman as he lifts up his 
heart to God ? Is it not that he may see the face of 
Christ ? For though the language be beautiful, though 



STORY AND SPIRIT OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 573 

the rites be expressive, yet both language and rite have 
their power, their marvellous soothing tendency, from 
the spirit of Christ which breathes through them and 
gives them life. It is the fulness of Christ in the book 
that makes it dear; it is the consciousness of being 
brought very near to him that gives peace and con- 
fidence. By and by these hallowed words shall cheer 
us as we taste of death, these sacred rites shall speak to 
us of our Redeemer's love, and thus soothed and com- 
forted we shall pass into the land where the prayer of 
our life shall be granted and we shall see the face of 
the King. 



INDEX 



" Absolution," 26. 

Adrian IV., Pope, 329. 

^Elfric, 291, 487. 

yEschylus, 40, 81. 

Agatha, St., 148. 

Agnes, St., 148. 

Agricola, 221. 

Aidan, St., 252, 255. 

Alaric, 151. 

Alban, St., 151, 226. 

Albigenses, 340, 345. 

Alexander of Alexandria, 157. 

Alexander of Constantinople, 163. 

Alexander the Great (b. c. 356- 

Z23)> 130. 
Alexander Severus, 142. 
Alfred the Great, 290, 291. 
Ambrose, St., 51, 152, 183, 199, 

200, 320. 
Anacreon, 100. 
Anastasius of Antioch, 29. 
Anatolius, St., 60. 
Andrewes, Launcelot, 525. 
Anne of Cleves, 480. 
Anglesea, Island of, 220. 
Anglican orders derived from Rome, 

258,311. 
Anselm of Canterbury, 289-329, 387, 

493, 57o. 
Anselm of Lucca, 295. 
Anthusa, 176. 



Antichrist, 302. 

Antioch in Syria, 29. 

Antoninus Pius, 93, 142. 

Antony, St., 105-117, 261, 265, 

266. 
Apollo changed into Christ, 58. 
Apostolicals, 345. 
Aquinas, 330, 351, 352, 442. 
Archdeacon, can an, be saved? 316. 
Architecture, triumphs of, 364-367, 

378. 
Arianism, 155, 162, 177. 
Aristophanes, 81. 
Aristotle, 81, 213. 
Alius, 155, 162, 163. 
Armada, Spanish, 513—515. 
Arthur, son of Henry VII., 458. 
Articles of the Church of England, 

473, 475, 484. 
Arundel, Archbishop, 411. 
Asceticism, 77-92, 180. 
Athanasius, St., 105, 113, 157, 159, 

163-166. 
Athenagoras, 100. 
Attila, 151. 

Augsburg Confession, 433. 
Augustine of Canterbury, 187, 243- 

247, 557. 
Augustine of Hippo, 31, 51, 152, 

194-212, 387, 501, 555. 
Aulus Plautius, 221. 
Austin canons, 298, 386. 

575 



576 



INDEX. 



B. 

Bailiff, death and burial of a, 284. 

Baldur, legend of, 236. 

Baptism, 25, 160, 196. 

Basil, St., 45, 167, 418. 

Baxter, Richard, 525. 

Beccelin the barber, 265. 

Bede, 267, 292, 393. 

Beginnings of Reformation, 373— 

413- 

Benedict of Nursia, 63, 152, 272. 

Benedict of Peterborough, 192. 

Benedict of Wearmouth, 292. 

Benedictine monks, 273, 297. 

Benedictus, 42. 

Bernard of Clairvaux, 60, 298. 

Bertha, queen of Kent, 243. 

Beverley, sisters of, 368. 

Beza, Theodore, 443. 

Black Death, 380. 

Boadicea, 221. 

Bodies that delayed corruption, 116, 

286. 
Boleyn, Anne, 459, 461, 469, 473. 
Bonaventura, 352. 
Boniface VIII., Pope, 346, 347. 
Boniface of Maintz, 291. 
Boniface of Numidia, 210. 
Book of Common Prayer, 443, 483, 

484. 
Bora, Catherine von, 434. 
Boscoi, the, 135. 
Bradwardine, 289, 401. 
Brethren of the Common Life, 385. 
British Church, 239, 247, 251, 258, 

3"- 

British land and Church, the, 213- 

229. 
Bromholm, 381-384. 
Bruce of Scotland, 342. 
Bruere of Exeter, 360. 



Bruno of Cologne, 297. 
Brutus the Trojan, 216. 
Bullinger, 432, 523. 
Bunyan, 31, 554-556. 
Burghesh of Lincoln, 401-403. 

C. 

Cadoc, 151. 

Cadwallon of Gwynedd, 250. 

Caecilia, St., 148. 

Caecilian of Carthage, 156. 

Calixtines, 392. 

Calvin, John, 439-444, 5 2 3- 

Camden, 269. 

Cantelupe of Hereford, 360. 

Canterbury, 164, 243, 245, 257, 

289-329, 360, 365. 
Canterbury Tales, 395. 
Canons, 298. 
Caracalla, 142. 
Caractacus, 221. 
Carausius, 232. 

Carpenter of Worcester, 396, 401. 
Carthage, 129. 
Carthusians, 297. 
Cassivellaunus, 221. 
Catherine, St., 148. 
Catherine of Arragon, 458, 468. 
Catherine Howard, 480. 
Catherine Parr, 480. 
" Catholic," meaning of word, 152. 
Cedd of East Anglia, 253, 255. 
Celibacy, 97-99, 475. 
Celsus, 15, 93. 

Century of splendor, 330-372. 
Ceolwulph of Mercia, 281. 
Chad, St., 253-255. 
"Chapel," derivation of word, 178. 
" Chaplain," derivation of word, 

178. 
Charles the Martyr, 541, 542, 543. 



INDEX. 



577 



Charles V., Emperor, 424, 460. 

Chatterton, 54. 

Chaucer, 395. 

Children's Crusade, 344. 

Chimneys, use of, 331. 

Chivalry, 341. 

Christ, Deity of, 153, 159. 

Christianity introduced into Britain, 
224-226. 

Chrysogone, 189. 

Chrysostom, St., 29, 31, 35, 152, 
167-169, 418, 501. 

Church, early, aggressive character 
of, 16; appeal to the masses 
of, 16; catholicity of the, 152- 
155; causes of extension, 14; 
composition, 15; development, 
15, 49; discipline, 18, 23, 80, 
84; pagan account of, 36; 
persecution of, 20, 22, 28, 92- 
97, 146. 

Cicero, 130. 

Cistercians, 298, 300. 

" Clack-dish," 333. 

Claudius Gothicus, 142. 

Clement of Alexandria, 44, 48, 57, 

75, 91, 96. 
Clement of Rome, 147. 
Clement VII., Pope, 501. 
Clementine hymn to Christ, 45, 48, 

51,57- 

" Clergy," application of term, 322, 

Clergy differ from monks, 137. 

Clergy, ignorance of the parish, 
399, 482. 

Cluniac monks, 297. 

Cobbler of Alexandria, the^ 113. 

Coin, 249. 

Coincidences not necessarily inven- 
tions, 177. 

Colet of St. Paul's, 414, 451. 
37 



Collects, the, 562-564. 
Columba, St., 152, 251. 
Commodus, 142, 225. 
Confessions of St. Augustine, 204, 

212, 438, 557. 
Confirmation, rite of, 25. 
Constantine the Great, 113, 149 

156, 168. 
Constantinople, 151, 152, 168, 346, 

374- 
Constantius Chlorus, 143, 146, 149, 
Constitutions of Clarendon, 324. 
Consubstantiation, 429. 
Corpus Christi, festival of, 350. 
Councils, 156, 226, 485, 540. 
"Counsels of Perfection," 101. 
Courtenay of Canterbury, 410. 
Coverdale, 465, 478. 
Cranmer, 464-493, 523, 558. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 544-550, 552. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 458, 470, 472. 
Cross, Invention of the, 168-173. 
Croyland, 260-288. 
Crusades, 312, 343, 344, 376. 
Cuthberga, St., 189. 
Cuthbert of Canterbury, 300. 
Cuthbert of Durham, 253-256, 265 j 

266. 
Cuthbert of Wearmouth, 293. 
Cynobellinus, 221. 
Cyprian, 100, 129, 147, 148, 189. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, 153, 169. 

D. 

Danes attack Croyland, 280. 

Daniel the Stylite, 134. 

Dante, 28, 40, 54, 310, 330, 346, 

353-358. 
David, St., 151. 
Deacons, 161. 
Dead, prayers for the, 27, 201, 484. 



573 



INDEX. 



De Civitate Dei, 204. 

De Roche of Winchester, 359. 

Derby, Lady, 533. 

Destruction of Jerusalem, 20. 

Didymus of Alexandria, 167. 

Diocletian, 142-149. 

Discipline in the early Church, 23. 

Dissolution of the abbeys, 455- 

458, 470-472. 
Diuma, bishop of the Mercians, 

253- 
Doctrine of Christ, 58, 153, 159. 
Dominic, 330, 339-341, 437- 
Dominicans, 340, 386. 
Domitian, 21. 
Druids, 2 18-22 1. 
Duns Scotus, 352. 
Dunstan, 291, 301. 



Eadbald of Kent, 248. 

Eadburga of Repton, 269. 

Edward the Confessor, 290. 

Edward VI., 480-489. 

Edwin of Northumbria, 248-251. 

Egwine of Worcester, 271. 

Egypt, ancient civiliation of, 72. 

Egypt, Christianity in, 70. 

Egyptian tendency to monachism, 
72. 

Elagabalus, 142. 

Elfrida of Repton, 261. 

Eleutherus, 225. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 470, 474, 494, 496. 

England, conversion of, 230-259. 

English Church not created by Par- 
liament, 258 ; continuity of the, 

445, 446. 
English paganism. 234-238. 
English Reformation, 445-493. 
English settle in Britain, 232. 



Ephraem the Syrian, 60, 136. 
Epiphanius of Cyprus, 167. 
Episcopacy, 26, 34, 139, 145, 156, 

160, 349, 486. 
Erasmus, 414-417, 422, 431. 
Eric of Brunswick, 426. 
Essenes, 63-69, 78. 
Ethelbald of Mercia, 266, 270. 
Ethelbert of Kent, 243-246. 
Eucharist, 25, 27, 162, 350, 429, 442, 

486. 
Euodius, 27. 

Eusebius of Csesarea, 157. 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, 157. 
Eustathius of Antioch, 157. 
Evelyn, John, 551. 
Evensong, 567. 
Eventide hymn, 45. 
Evesham, 271. 



Faith, St., 148. 

Farnham of Durham, 360. 

Fasting, 27. 

Felicitas, 96, 149. 

Felix of East Anglia, 250. 

Felix of Yarrow, 268, 279. 

Feudalism, 341. 

Field of the Cloth of Gold, 459. 

Finan of Iona, 252. 

Fish, symbol of the, 24. 

Flowers, objection to use of, 18, 92. 

Fossway, 223. 

Foster, John, 475. 

Fox, bishop of Winchester, 457, 464. 

Fox, George, 55 2 ~554- 

Francis of Assisi, 265, 330, ZZ^-339, 

437- 
Franciscans, 337. 
Frederick, elector of Saxony, 424, 

426. 



INDEX. 



579 



Frederick II., Emperor, 330, 341, 

343- 

Friars, degeneracy of the, 394, 405. 
Fursey, St., 250. 

G. 

Galerius, 143, 146, 148. 
Gardiner of Winchester, 465, 468, 

473- 
Gennadius of Constantinople, 134. 
Genseric the Vandal, 151, 210 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 216. 
Gerhard Groot, 385. 
German of Auxerre, 190, 227. 
Gerson, John, 387. 
Giffard of Worcester, 359. 
Gimp the Leper, 191. 
Glacial Period in Britain, 214. 
Glastonbury, 63, 365, 471. 
Gloria Patri, 45, 48. 
Gnosticism, 74-77. 
Godfrey of Jerusalem, 314. 
Gray of York, 360. 
" Grazers," the, 135. 
Greece, influence upon Christianity 

of, IS- 
Gregory the Great, 28, 239-247, 

558. 
Gregory VII., 99, 295, 306, 321. 
Gregory X., 346. 
Gregory Nazianzen, 152. 
Gregory of Nyssa, 167. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 481, 489. 
Grocyn, 414. 

Grosseteste of Lincoln, 360. 
Guilds, 167. 
Guthlac, St., 260-288. 

H. 

Hadrian, 93. 
Hampden, John, 534. 



Hampton Court Conference, 522. 

Harold II., 1 90, 549. 

Hatfield, battle of, 251. 

Heddi of Lichfield, 266. 

Helena, St., 168-172. 

Hemy II., 318-328. 

Henry IV., Emperor, 295, 321. 

Henry VII., 379. 

Henry VIII., 427, 447-480. 

Henry of Huntingdon, 303. 

Herbert, George, 519, 528. 

Herhvin, 304. 

Herodotus, 213. 

Heron of Nitria, 124. 

Herrick, 517. 

Hertford, Synod of, 257. 

Hesychius, 118. 

Hibernus, 216. 

Hieracas, 100. 

Hilarion, St., 117, 151. 

Hilary of Poictiers, 152, 175, 177. 

Hilda, St., 250. 

Hildebrand. See Gregory VII. 

Hippolytus, St., 96, 147. 

Hlodwig, 190. 

Homer, 40, 54, 351. 

Homilies, 479. 

Hooker, Richard, 164, 494-521. 

Hosius of Cordova, 156. 

Hospitality of the abbeys, 368. 

Hospitallers of St. John, 313, 341. 

Hugh of Avalon, 297. 

Hugh Cadam, 216. 

Huss, 387, 389-39I- 

Hymnus Angelicus, 45, 48. 

Hymns used in divine service, 42. 

I. 

Ignatian Epistles, 31. 

Ignatius, St., 13-38, 43, 100, 147. 

Iltud, St., 151. 



58o 



INDEX. 



Imitatio C/iristi, 387. 
Indulgences, 415, 421-423. 
Ingulph, 274, 278. 
Inis Wen, 214. 
Innocent III., 330, 341, 346. 
Innocent IV., 347, 398. 
Inquisition, 340, 346. 
Investiture, 305-309. 
Iona, or Hii, 152, 251. 
Ireland, Church of, 251. 
Irenseus, 27, 147, 224. 
Isabella of Warwick, 381. 
Ivo Taillebois, 287. 

J- 

James I. of England, 497, 501, 

522. 
Jerome, St., 105, 122, 167. 
Jerome of Prague, 387, 391. 
Jerusalem, fall of, 20. 
Jesuits, 437. 

Jewel, Bishop, 486, 495, 496, 499. 
John of Beverley, 189. 
John of Gaunt, 397, 407. 
John, King, 370, 466. 
Joner, Wolfgang, 432. 
Jordan of Plumstead, 191. 
Joseph of Arimathea, 471. 
Judaism, influence upon Christianity 

of, 15. 
Juliana of Weston, 286. 
Julius Caesar, 221. 
Justin Martyr, 147. 

K. 

Keats, 54. 
Keltic migration, 216. 
Ken, Bishop, 569. 
Kenulph of Evesham, 270. 
Kentigern, St., 151. 
Knights Templar, 313, 341. 



L. 

Lactantius, 167. 

Lanfranc, 289-329, 493. 

Langley, 393~395- 

Langton of Canterbury, 370. 

Lapsi, 96, 147. 

Latimer, Bishop, 114, 414, 446, 472, 

474, 476, 489, 491- 
Laud, William, 289, 493, 539-542. 
Legenda Aurea Sanctorum, 1 7 1. 
Legends of the old churches, 367. 
Leo Juda, 428, 431. 
Leo X., Pope, 416, 421. 
Leo of Thrace, 134, 135. 
Leontius of Csesarea, 157. 
Leprosy, 191, 334. 
Light a figure of Christ, 43, 58. 
" Lighten," meaning in Te Deum 

of word, 561. 
Linacre, 414. 
Lincoln, 223, 296, 360. 
Lindisfarne, 252, 254. 
Lions dig St. Anthony's grave, 105. 
Litany, 479, 565-567. 
Lollards, 409-412. 
London, 223, 226, 246. 
Long Parliament dissolved, 545. 
" Long Vacation," 332. 
Louis of France, 343. 
Loyola, Ignatius, 437. 
Lucian, 93. 
Lucius, 225. 
Lucy, St., 148. 

Ludyngton, Master William, 277. 
Luther, 263, 4I9"43 6 , 463. 
Lupus of Troyes, 227. 
Luxury of the pagans, 88-92. 

M. 

Macarius ^Egyptius, 121. 
Macarius Alexandrinus, 126-128. 



INDEX. 



5 8l 



Macarius of Jerusalem, 157. 
Magnificat, 42, 561. 
Mani of Ecbatana, 76. 
Marcellus of Ancyra, 157. 
Marcus Aurelius, 93, 95, 100, 142, 

225. 
Marriage, 27, 66, 89, 97, 167, 

475- 

Martin of Braga, 174. 

Martin of Tours, 152, 174-193. 

Martyrdom, desire for, 32, 96. 

Mary, Queen, 474, 489. 

Mary queen of Scots, 481, 511. 

Matthew of Westminster, 268. 

Mauger of Worcester, 360. 

Maxentius, 148. 

Maximianus, 143, 146. 

Maximin, 148. 

Maximus, 179. 

Maximinus Daza, 112. 

Mayflower, the, 538. 

Megalithic remains, 220. 

Melanchthon, 424, 426, 433, 436, 

441. 
Melito of Sardis, 95. 
Methodius, St., 60. 
Metropolitans, 145, 226. 
Milton, 40, 355, 529-533. 
" Minister," 338. 
Minorites, 337. 
Minucius Felix, 13, 147. 
Miriam, 105. 
Mistletoe, 219, 236. 
Mohammed, 100. 
Mona, 220. 
Monachism, growth of, 104-140, 

180. 
Monica, St., 176, 194-212. 
Moravians, 393. 

More, Sir Thomas, 452, 461, 470. 
Moses, St., 151. 



Mutius, 123. 
Mysticism, 71. 



N. 



National Church absolute, 302. 
Nero, 18, 93, 95. 
Newman quoted, 154. 
Nicaea, Echoes from, 141-173. 
Nicene Council, 45, 156-162. 
Ninian, St., 187, 227. 
Nunc Dimittis, 42, 562. 

O. 

Occasional offices, 564. 
Odo of Clugny, 297. 
CEcolampadius, 431. 
Orderic, 279. 

Origen, 79, 147, 418, 501. 
Osmund of Salisbury, 558. 
Ostorius Scapula, 221. 
Oswald of Northumbria, 251. 
Ovid, 100. 
Owen, John, 82, 
Oxford, 332, 450. 
Oxyrinchus, 128. 



Pachomius, 118, 123. 

Pcedagogus, 73. 

Pambos, 128. 

Papacy, 158, 242, 322, 348, 411 

470. 
Paradise Lost, 530-532. 
Parish life in Hooker's time, 515- 

519. 
Paston, John, 381-384. 
Patriarchates, 26, 168. 
Patricius of Thagaste, 195, 201. 
Patrick, St.. 151, 227, 251, 572. 
Paul of Alexandria, 105, 114, 261. 

265. 



582 



INDEX. 



Paul the Simple, 125. 

Paulinus, 246, 248, 250. 

Paulinus Suetonius, 221. 

Peada of Mercia, 252. 

Peckham, Archbishop, 401. 

Pega, 263, 272. 

Pelagius, 207, 227. 

Penda of Mercia, 250-253. 

Pepys, 551. 

Perambulations, 517. 

Perpetua, St., 96, 148. 

Persecution, 92, 95. 

Peter of Alcantara, 438. 

Peter the Hermit, 312. 

Peterborough, abbey of, 267. 

Pharaoh, tradition of, 107. 

Philip of Hesse, 426. 

Philip of Neri, 438. 

Philip of Spain, 490, 511, 513. 

Philo, 75. 

Phoenicians, the, 213, 217, 218. 

Piers the Plowman, 393. 

Pilgrimage of grace, 472. 

Pilgrim's Progress, 555. 

Pior, 122. 

Plato, 81. 

Pliny, 36, 43. 

Poetry, early ritual, 39-61. 

Polycarp, St., 29, 30, 96, 147. 

Possidius of Calama, 211. 

Pothinus, St., 147. 

Prsemonstratensians, 298. 

Praemunire, statute of, 411, 462. 

Prayer-Book, story and spirit of the, 

557- 
Prayers for dead, 27, 201, 484. 
Prisca, St„ 148. 

Prosperity not an unmixed evil, 167^ 
Provisors, statute of, 41 1. 
Psalms, 52, 53, 55, 509, 557. 
Psalter of Solomon, 53. 



Ptolemy the anchoret, 125. 
Puritan supremacy, the, 522-556. 
Puritanism, 497-499, 502, 510. 

Q. 

Quakers, 552-554. 
Quarles quoted, 102. 

R. 

Rabelais, 439. 

Renascence, 374. 

Rich, Edmund, 289, 360, 362. 

Richard I., 314. 

Richard of Wych, 361-363. 

Ridley, Bishop, 446, 476, 491. 

Ritual, 15, 27, 53, 167, 540, 557. 

Robert de Insula, 360. 

Robert of Molesme, 297. 

Robert de Stitchell, 360. 

Roger Bacon, 330, 352. 

Roger de Hoveden, 364. 

Roger of Wendover, 356, 364. 

Roman Church, ancient glory of ? 

241. 
Roman conquest of Britain, 221. 
Rome, influence upon Christianity 

of, 15. 
Rome, decline, 141 ; Nero's fire, 

19; patriarchate, 26, 168. 
Rose a figure of Christ, 59, 358. 
Rowldrich, 220. 



Saladin, 314. 

Sappho, 81. 

Saracens, civilization of, 376. 

Sargon of Accad, 177. 

Savonarola, 388. 

Savoy conference, 522. 

Sawtrey, 395. 



INDEX. 



583 



Saxon and Swiss, 414-444. 

Scota, 216. 

Scriptures, 53, 168, 206, 375, 407, 

418, 427, 477, 527. 
Secret society, the Church regarded 

as a, 24. 
Sergius, 134. 
Servetus, 441. 
Severus, 148. 
Sewall ol York, 360. 
Sex-worship, 99. 
Seymour, Jane, 474. 
Shakespeare, 40, 82, 351, 495, 549. 
Sheaf, symbol of the, 24. 
Sicilian Vespers, 345. 
Sigismund, Emperor, 390. 
Simon de Montfort, 340, 342, 345. 
Sisterhoods, 104. 
Social life of paganism, 88-92. 
Solitary life, 62-103. 
Sophocles, 40, 81. 
Spenser, 40, 494, 549. 
Splendor, century of, 330-372. 
Sponsors in baptism, 25. 
Spyridon of Cyprus, 157. 
Stephen, King, 315, 317. 
Stephen Harding, 298. 
Stephen of Vendome, 344. 
Stonehenge, 220. 
Storms, 489, 549. 
Students' life in old time, 197, 198, 

332, 361, 375- 
Stylites, 130-135. 
Sudbury, Simon, 289. 
Sulpicius Severus, 169, 176. 
Sunday, observance of, 364. 
Swithin, St., 291. 
Sylvester of Rome, 157, 189. 
Symbolism, 24, 366, 367. 
Symeon the Elder, 130-134. 
Symeon Maumastorites, 135. 



Synesius of Cyrene, 50, 60. 
Synods, 160. 

Tabenne, 119, 129. 

Taborites, 393. 

Tacitus, 93. 

Tatwin the fisherman, 262, 271. 

Te Deum, 46, 47, 51, 200, 560. 

Tertullian, 22, 43, 88, 89, 96, 129, 

147, 5oi- 
Tetzel, 422. 
Tewkesbury, 365, 380. 
Thebaid, early home of monachism, 

105. 
Theobald of Canterbuiy, 315, 316. 
Theodora, 143. 
Theodore of Tabenne, 165. 
Theodore of Mopsue^tia, 152. 
Theodore of Tarsus, 256-258. 
Theresa, St., 438. 
Thomas of Canterbury, 186, 191, 

289, 3 1 5-329, 464, 493. 
Thomas of Celano, 352. 
Thomas a Kempis, 385-388, 437. 
Titus, Emperor, 20. 
Toley, Dane-fighter, 280. 
Traditores, 96, 147. 
Trajan, 22, 28, 36, 37, 43, 93, 142. 
Transubstantiation, 350, 475. 
Travers, 500. 

Trent, Council of, 436, 511. 
Trisagion, 45, 54. 
Turchill of Essex, 356. 
Turgar of Croyland, 280-282. 
Turketulof Croyland, 281. 
Tyndale, 465, 477, 482. 



U. 



Ulfilas, 151. 



584 



INDEX. 



Unitas Fratrum, 393. 
Universities, 332, 375. 
Upton, Richard, 275-278. 

V. 

Valeria, 143. 
Valerius of Hippo, 202. 
Vespasian, 20, 221. 
Vincent Lirinensis, 153. 
Virgil, 54, 355- 
Virginity, 100, 104. 

W. 

Walter of Brienne, 342. 
Walter of Worcester, 360. 
Waltheof, 286. 

Walton, Izaak, 499, 517, 519, 551. 
Wars of the Roses, 379, 448. 
Washing of feet, 287. 
Western Christendom a confedera- 
tion of churches, 445. 
Whiting, abbot of Glastonbury, 471. 
Wickliffe, 397-409. 



William the Conqueror, 190, 278, 

■ 293-303. 
William of Malmesbury, 190, 355. 
William Rufus, 303-309, 466. 
William of Wykeham, 397, 401. 
Windows, 332. 
Wooden bowls, 333. 
Wolsey, 447-463, 468. 
Worms, Council of, 306. 
Worms, Diet of, 424. 
Wulfilaich, 135. 
Wulfsy, 287. 

X. 

Xavier, Francis, 437. 



Y. 

York, 149, 226, 246, 250, 290, 
360, 365. 

Z. 

Zwingle, Ulrich, 428-431, 523. 



THE END. 












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